Storm Season
by Maria Thorne
Summary: What might have happened if the events of Blackjack had gone somewhat differently.
1. Chapter 1

Several months ago, I came across a discussion thread on an Airwolf forum started by someone looking for fan input for a script being written for a proposed Airwolf movie. That post sparked a long and sometimes acrimonious discussion of what the forum members did – and didn't – want to see in an updated version of Airwolf.

My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that any movie made now would probably be almost unrecognizable as Airwolf, and would therefore be something I wasn't terribly interested in watching. However, it did get me thinking about what I _would_ like to see, and I finally decided that, in a fantasy world – if I couldn't have Loch Ness's "Scent of Blood" stories – an expanded, improved version of the episode Blackjack (starring the original cast, as they looked in 1986) was it.

So I started to write one (bearing in mind that plenty of other writers of Airwolf fan fiction have already done the same thing, so if I'm violating copyright here, I'm in good company!) which gave me a chance to attempt to "fix" not only Blackjack but Half Pint and the ending of Birds of Paradise, at least in my own mind. I couldn't fix all the problems and inconsistencies I'd have liked to – in fact, I may have created a few new ones. But I had a lot of fun trying.

Just remember – no one dies. No one ever dies. (At least not if they're one of my favourite characters.)

Standard disclaimers: Airwolf belongs to someone else, probably Belisarius Productions and/or Universal. I've borrowed dialogue, characters, and some situations from the episode "Blackjack".

_**Storm Season**_

Rain.

It never seemed to stop raining. Hot, steamy, torrential rain when you could hardly see your hand in front of your face, and the mosquitoes practically ate you alive. Cool, damp rain, that made you shiver, and malarial sweats were the only way to keep warm.

He was sick to the bone of water falling from the sky. It seemed to have been raining since the beginning of time. Realistically, he knew that this must be the end of the summer monsoon, that the weather would soon change; but it seemed now that the rain had been falling for as long as he'd been a prisoner.

That had been a very, very long time.

Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army, Khmer Rouge, any local warlord with a use for enforced labour or a dislike of Americans; he seemed to have been a pawn in everyone's keeping at one time or another, for so long he could hardly remember what normal life was like, shunting around southeast Asia. Once, years ago, he'd managed to break free, and for a brief time there'd been a glimmer of hope that he might be able to get away from the hell of existence in a prison camp, get home. The glimmer had been extinguished within a matter of weeks.

Occasionally his captors had used his skills as a helicopter pilot for short junkets. Usually it was on some business connected with the drug trade. He really didn't give a damn why he was flying; in some ways it was worse being up in the air at the controls of a chopper than shut in amidst the stench and squalor of the camps. So near, and yet so far.

He always thought of crashing the aircraft. Taking his hands off the controls and letting it fly straight into the ground, or into the side of a mountain. But somehow he'd never had the courage. It had nothing to do with fear of the gun that was usually jammed up against his head; he actually found that rather laughable. Did they really think that a man who'd been through what he had wouldn't take the easy option of a quick and relatively painless death, rather than land safely and live to take more of it?

No, it wasn't the fear of dying that stopped him. He wasn't exactly sure what it was. Something about another kind of fear – of missing the opportunity that might come again some day. To get out. To get a message out. Because if he missed that, people back home would never, ever know what had happened to him. If he'd been the one safely back home, the knowledge that he'd had to abandon his brother in the jungle, surrounded by the enemy, no way of knowing what had happened to him – well, maybe there were worse things than a prison camp.

Hell, who was he fooling? Maybe the idea that his brother was sitting back in the U.S., probably married with a kid or two, still flying helicopters like a demented angel, still wondering what had happened to his big brother – maybe that was all just castle in the air stuff. Maybe the kid didn't give a damn any more, had written him off years ago. Maybe the kid had never made it out of of Vietnam himself.

He tried never to let his thoughts travel into those channels. He had to believe that his brother had survived the war and was still out there, still looking for him, still trying to get him home. And lately, there had been just a hint that that was all true.

A year ago, he thought, just before the summer monsoon started (or had it been the year before that?) he had wound up as the prisoner of a man by the name of Bouchard. Ironically, he'd thought at first that Bouchard was going to save him. Bouchard had gotten him out of another prison camp in the midst of a failed rescue attempt, when everything was being blown to hell and St. John, sick from some kind of fever, hadn't had the strength to follow the other prisoners to safety. Even though it seemed Bouchard had saved his life, St. John had found the man repulsive, with his thick lips and stone-cold eyes. It wasn't long before he found himself in yet another prison.

Bouchard was a renegade of some kind. His men called him Colonel. Impossible to know whether that title was real or if he'd just claimed it because he liked the sound of it. St. John's name seemed to mean something to this colonel. After a while, it became obvious that he had a specific use in mind for his prisoner, and it wasn't for his flying skills. The Colonel knew his kid brother, and was planning on somehow using him to lure his brother here.

That was the one thing that would make St. John Hawke fly right into the side of the nearest mountain. Never mind that he didn't understand what Bouchard wanted with his brother, or what this mysterious craft was that Bouchard called Airwolf, that apparently String was flying.

The knowledge that Bouchard was contemplating using him as bait for a trap to snare his brother gave impetus to a few more escape attempts. All of them failed. Now he was down to his last chance. If this didn't work, he would have to try to find some way to kill himself. Better that than have String dragged into this.

"Guards," muttered Ackroyd, sitting next to him.

St. John managed to scrape up enough of the mouldy straw from the floor of the cage to cover the almost-finished bamboo tube he'd been scraping at with a stone.

The guards entered the cage and began to drag some of the occupants out. Throwing their weight around, as usual – did they really think that any of the prisoners had enough strength left, of body or will, to cause any problems?

Burke was there. St. John particularly disliked Burke. He was a nasty, vicious piece of work. The fact that he was a fellow American somehow made it even worse.

Ming Ho, a little Asian guy from God knew where, about whom St. John knew nothing more than his name, was slumped on his other side. He didn't move fast enough for Burke, and the American dealt him a brutal kick in the ribs, sending him back to the ground with a cry of pain. Then he drew his pistol and aimed it at the Asian man.

To hell with it, thought St. John. He scrambled to his feet and aimed a punch at Burke.

The cage was suddenly surrounded with shouting guards, all with their rifles pointed straight at St. John. Burke had lost his footing in the straw but now staggered to his feet, coming up with his gun trained on St. John as well, hammer cocked and just a finger-twitch away from pulling the trigger.

"Soldier . . . " said a voice from behind St. John. Bouchard.

He shook his head and then jerked it toward the cage door. Burke drew a couple of deep breaths and ran a hand across the scarlet blotch blooming on his cheek, then gestured with his gun for the remaining men to head out.

Silently, St. John helped Ming Ho up and supported him outside and into the rain.

"Still playing the hero, Hawke?" Bouchard asked pleasantly.

St. John said nothing. As he and Ming Ho limped on, he was aware of Bouchard and Burke falling in behind them. "Any movement from the other side?"

"Negative, sir."

"Let's raise the stakes."

Now what the hell did _that_ mean?

Whatever they were talking about, St. John had a feeling he was going to find out soon. And he knew that he wasn't going to like it.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Rain was falling in Los Angeles, as well, in what was becoming a stretch of wet, gloomy days, unseasonal and depressing for a southern California autumn. Stringfellow Hawke was glad to be heading toward the dry desert northeast of the city, even if he did have a few reservations about what he was supposed to be doing once he got there.

"Wind drift autocompensator?" he said to the red-haired woman in the right-hand seat of the red, white and blue Santini Air Jetranger.

Caitlin O'Shannessy sighed. She and Hawke had been over the specs and manual for the slightly improbable-sounding device at least three times already, but Hawke remained sceptical. It didn't help that the designer from the small company manufacturing the thing had backed out of the demonstration flight at the last minute, confessing to a complete terror of flying.

"It's hard-wired into the RPM governor," she said patiently. "It allows for hands-off hovering in really erratic wind conditions. Great for air-sea rescue."

Hawke shrugged and finally produced the beginnings of a smile. "Well, if it works, I'm impressed."

"I just hope the world market shares that opinion." Caitlin quite liked the hapless designer. True, he was a bit of a geek, awkward and gangling kind of like an overgrown puppydog, but considering her last disastrous romances, geeky was just fine. "Let's see how she handles in high-speed maneuvers."

Hawke smirked. To anyone used to flying a machine like Airwolf, the words "high-speed maneuvers" and "JetRanger" didn't even belong in the same sentence. Nevertheless, in spite of his reservations (part of which was pure sham - Caitlin's feelings were always completely transparent, and he knew perfectly well she was interested in the designer) he was looking forward to seeing how well the gizmo functioned.

The helicopter spiralled down toward the desert.

Two hours later, they were landing back in Van Nuys in a cold drizzle.

"How 'bout some coffee?" asked Hawke, as the rotors circled lazily to a standstill and Caitlin began unclipping the autocompensator unit.

"Sure. I'll be with you in a minute."

Hawke jogged through the increasing rain into the Santini Air hangar. He put the coffee on, then thumbed through the pile of mail that had been left on the desk in the office. Bill, bill, junk, bill…something addressed to Dom from one of the movie studios, hopefully a check…and a heavy brown envelope addressed to him, care of Santini Air. No return address, an illegible postmark. He shrugged and tossed it back on the pile as he heard the coffee start to bubble.

Caitlin arrived, brushing droplets of water from her jacket. She poured coffee for both of them, leaving Hawke's black, adding cream and a generous spoonful of sugar to her own. They leaned against the desk side by side, listening to the rain drumming on the roof and the occasional hiss of car tires on the wet tarmac outside the open door.

"Awfully quiet here without Dom," Caitlin commented.

"Yup." The owner of Santini Air had taken a few days off, travelling down to San Remo Island, the place where he'd been born and had lived his formative years, where he'd been married and fathered a daughter who had died two years ago this month. After everything that had transpired at the time of Sally Anne's death, the place had few fond memories for Dominic Santini. But he had begun to make annual pilgrimages to her grave to mark the unhappy anniversary. Hawke had offered to accompany him but had been turned down. He suspected that Dom preferred to keep the life that he'd had on the island as separate as possible from the one he had spent most of his adult life living in California.

Finishing her coffee, Caitlin leaned back and thumbed through the stack of mail in her turn. "Wonder what's in here?" she commented, looking at the envelope from the studio. "Hope it's a check. Or a job offer."

"Yeah."

"What's this?" she said next, coming to the envelope with Hawke's name on it. He shrugged.

"Hey, you better open it. Could be some long-lost relative died and left you a fortune."

"Right."

"Or maybe it's from a dating agency, to say they've found you the girl of your dreams."

He gave her a pained look. She grinned and thumped her empty coffee cup down on the desk. "Guess I'd better get started on a report for Bill about his autocompensator. That three o'clock lesson that cancelled didn't rebook, did they? Should we try and get some of the monthly maintenance done on the JetRanger this afternoon?"

"Go ahead, no, and sure."

Caitlin began to rummage on the desktop for the forms they'd been given, then sat down and began to write busily. She heard Hawke slitting open an envelope.

After a moment, something about his silence made her look up.

Hawke was still sitting on the edge of the desk, holding a slip of paper in one hand and something small and shiny in the other. He was completely, unnaturally still. His face might have been carved in granite.

"String?" she asked uncertainly. "What is it?"

At first she wasn't sure if he'd even heard her. Then his hand closed on the small object, and he said in a low, rough voice, "St. John."

"What?" She got up and came around the desk to face him. "What do you mean, St. John? Is it a letter from him?" She felt idiotic saying that. Hawke was just about as likely to get a letter from the tooth fairy as from his long-lost, long-missed older brother.

Hawke handed her the piece of paper.

"'This belongs to your brother,'" she read. The handwriting was shaky, almost illegible. There was a signature, but it was impossible to read. She turned the paper over. Nothing more, just those cryptic five words. "What belongs to your brother?"

Hawke held out his other hand and opened it so she could see that it held a man's gold ring with some kind of crest. The ring was badly scratched, the lettering on the crest almost obliterated. She looked at it in disbelief, then at Hawke, who was staring straight out the open hangar door. She didn't know what he was seeing, but she was quite sure it wasn't what was right in front of him. "Is this – his?"

Hawke cleared his throat. "Could be. It's a Van Nuys High School ring. St. John had one just like it."

"But you don't really think – "

He didn't answer. He just kept staring at the rain.

Out of nowhere, Caitlin felt a hot fury surging up. "Damn it, String – "

That got his attention. His eyes swivelled towards her, startled and ready to be defensive. But her anger wasn't directed at him. She rushed on, "Someone's playing a joke on you. A real mean, nasty joke. They ought to be shot. Somebody knows you're vulnerable, and they've got a sick, sick sense of humour, and they're trying to wind you up."

Hawke cleared his throat again. It kept trying to close up on him. "You think that's all this is?"

"What else could it be? Something of St. John's, just falling out of the blue after all these years? Why didn't whoever sent it say anything else in this note? Or at least sign it with a name you could read?"

He didn't answer that either. He didn't know. He looked at the ring again, turning it over and over in his fingers.

Caitlin didn't know what to say. She looked at the envelope that had held the ring and note, wondering if there was any point in taking it to the post office to see if they could decipher the postmark. Or maybe they could take the ring to that psychic String and Dom had worked with when Archangel and his Fortune Teller device had gone missing last year, and ask if she could get any vibes from it, or whatever it was that psychics did when they searched for missing people. Then she looked at Hawke again, and decided it was probably better not to say anything at all right now. She put a hand on his shoulder, but he seemed completely unaware of her existence. She walked over to the hangar entrance and stood staring out, wondering if maybe she should just invent an excuse to take off and let Hawke brood without spectators. He probably would rather be left to himself, except she felt badly about leaving him alone when he was hurting so much.

There was the sound of rapid movement behind her and she spun around to find him striding swiftly towards the cabinet where Dom kept all his flight charts. Her eyes widened as he began to ransack it, tossing chart after chart aside until he finally found the one he was looking for. He swept the litter of papers aside to spread it out on the desk.

"There," he said, stabbing hard at a point on the chart.

Caitlin stared, wondering if he'd suddenly come completely unhinged. "There, what?"

He held up the ring. "Look at this." He wouldn't let it out of his grasp, as if it was some kind of holy grail, but she bent and stared at it again as hard as she could. It still looked like nothing more than a battered high school ring to her. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"Inside," he said briefly, tilting the ring so the inside of the band caught the light from the overhead fluorescents. Caitlin could just make out a series of scratches, so tiny they were almost invisible without a jeweller's loupe. "What are they? It looks kind of like numbers."

"They are numbers. Coordinates." He turned back to the chart. "Here. He's here."

Caitlin stared from him to the desktop and back again. "Burma? String, what would your brother be doing in Burma?"

"When I find him, I'll ask him."

"String…" She grabbed his arms, as if to physically stop him from rushing right out the door and off to the other side of the world. "Don't do something stupid, okay?"

"Who said anything about doing something stupid?" He looked at her coldly, and began to fold the chart again with crisp, deliberate movements. He dropped it on the desk. "Come on. Let's get started on the Jet Ranger."

Caitlin looked worriedly at his back. "At least not until Dom gets back," she sighed.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Going to Knightsbridge rarely improved Stringfellow Hawke's mood. This time was no exception.

"What the hell is this?" he demanded truculently, standing in what had been – unbelievably, past tense, it appeared – the anteroom to Archangel's office. In times past, he would likely have found Marella sitting there, like a comely dragon barring access to her boss except for the select few she deemed worthy of admission. Lately it was more likely to be Marlene, Carol, Samantha - a rota of attractive white-clad women who were all equally as polite as Marella, and just as quietly effective.

Now they had all been replaced by a man in a gray suit. _Dark_ gray. And the colour scheme had changed. Hardly a trace of white anywhere. Not that that was a bad thing in itself. But it seemed to be a harbinger of more fundamental changes. And the man in the dark gray suit was denying all knowledge of Archangel, or Michael Coldsmith Briggs, and obviously saw Hawke as nothing more than a disturbance which needed to be evicted from his little kingdom.

The door to Archangel's office opened, and a man walked out who Hawke had never seen in his life before. Black with a trim moustache, a little taller than Hawke, he looked as if he probably smiled easily, but wasn't smiling now. "I'll take over from here," he told the assistant.

"Who are you?" said Hawke bluntly. "And where's Archangel?"

"You must be Stringfellow Hawke," said the black man, not cordially. "I've been wanting to talk to you. But not today. Make an appointment." He started to walk past, apparently figuring that that concluded the conversation.

Hawke grabbed his shoulder. "You're not going anywhere till I talk to Archangel."

There was more muscle under the expensively tailored suit than he'd expected. "All you're seeing is me. And you're not gonna see much of that if I don't feel some space between us quick."

"I want some answers, and I want 'em now. Where is Archangel?"

"I can't hear a word you're saying," the other man said coolly.

Hawke shoved him against one freshly-painted wall. Two security types came rushing in and grabbed him by the arms. Hawke glared, ready, in his more than usually belligerent mood, to take them all on.

The black man straightened his tie. "All right, fellas, take it easy. He's my problem. Come with me," he said to Hawke, leading the way back into Archangel's office. The security men cautiously released Hawke and he slowly followed the black man.

Once inside what had been Archangel's inner sanctum, he stared around in astonishment. This room, like the one out front, had been repainted. All the white was gone, the big desk, Archangel's white leather chair. Even the paintings on the walls had been changed. He felt almost as disoriented as if he'd gotten to the airfield and found Santini Air vanished.

The black man sat down behind the different desk, and Hawke slouched into another chair. "Listen, Hawke, Archangel has been stationed somewhere in the Far East. I've taken over your file. Jason Locke." He didn't offer to shake hands.

"Real nice of you to tell me about it," said Hawke. "And what do you mean, Far East?"

Locke shrugged. "Archangel should have told you about all the changes here. And Far East means just that."

"That's a big area."

"That's all I can tell you."

Hawke snorted.

"There something I can do for you? I assume you came here for a reason."

Hawke wanted to get up and leave. Obviously intimidation wasn't going to work with Locke to get him the information he wanted, and right at the moment he knew he wasn't thinking clearly enough to come up with any other tactics.

"Does this have anything to do with Airwolf?"

Hawke fingered the ring in his jacket pocket. Oh, what the hell.

"It has something to do with my brother," he said grudgingly, and pulled out the ring, showing it to Locke on the palm of his extended hand. When the other man leaned forward to pick it up, he instinctively pulled the hand away, closing it tight. "This is my brother's ring. Someone mailed it to me, with a note saying it belonged to St. John. It showed up yesterday. Someone's scratched numbers inside. Looks like coordinates. Somewhere in – " His fingers curled into quote marks. " – the Far East."

"Your _brother's_ ring?" repeated Locke, in obvious disbelief. "What makes you think that?"

"I recognize it. He got it in his final year at Van Nuys."

"You recognize it." Locke rolled his eyes. "Come on, Hawke, I've heard better deductive reasoning from a kindergarten kid. You can't prove it's your brother's ring. After – what is it now? Sixteen years? Seventeen? – even if he's still alive, he's not gonna have a single thing left to his name, let alone gold jewellery. Besides, between this, and the ring he supposedly gave his supposed wife in Vietnam, and that bracelet Eric Maasse and his happy band of brainwashers gave you a couple of years ago when they tricked you into handing over Airwolf to them, it seems St John's a whole travelling Cartier's store."

Hawke stiffened, both at Locke's sarcastic manner and the fact that the man had obviously made himself very well acquainted in a short time with that file.

"It's probably just somebody playing a prank on you," Locke concluded.

"Could be," said Hawke. "But I'm gonna take Airwolf and find out."

"Take a reality pill, Hawke. Why would somebody send you this and not tell you anything else – like, where they got it from, and what happened to St. John? And who sent it, anyway? They give a name, or tell you how to contact them? And how can you prove this belonged to your brother - it got a serial number, or something?"

Hawke shook his head.

"Look, Hawke, I really am sorry about what happened with your brother. But this adds up to squat, and you know it." He sighed. "You know, this isn't my idea of a good time either. But according to orders, you're my pain in the butt and I'm yours. So you'd better sit tight. I'll access the files on St. John and see if there's anything Archangel missed. In the meantime, be patient."

Hawke leaned over the desk and into his face. He spoke through gritted teeth. "I have been."

"Then you're gonna have to be patient a while longer."

"Forget it, Locke. As soon as Airwolf is ready, we're heading for Burma."

"Burma? For God's sake, you can't just go flying into someplace like that thinking St. John'll be waiting at those coordinates of yours and you just have to scoop him up and slip out again! You'd need a whole team, you'd need backup, supplies…not to mention the fact that Airwolf hasn't been refueled or had her armament restocked since your last mission."

"The Firm isn't the only source of fuel and ammunition."

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?" said Locke, almost in wonderment.

Hawke didn't bother replying. He'd had enough of Archangel's successor for one day. He got up and headed for the door.

Locke got to his feet as well. "I forbid you to use Airwolf for unsanctioned personal business."

Hawke would have laughed if he hadn't been so worked up. He swung back to face Locke. "Listen, you pompous son of a bitch, St. John _is_ Airwolf's business. That was the deal I had with Archangel."

"I'm gonna tell you one more time, Archangel's gone. That deal is null and void. You want to be charged with treason, Mr. Hawke?"

"Been tried before." As much as he'd tried to keep out of Firm politics, he had a shrewd idea of what Archangel had shielded him from when he'd first made the decision to keep control of Airwolf after bringing her back from Libya.

"And the only reason it didn't work was because you had Archangel to protect you," said Locke, as if he'd read his mind.

Hawke stopped. Without turning around, he said, as calmly as he could, "Look, Locke, the other part of the deal was that I'd hand Airwolf back to the Firm when I found out what happened to my brother. The sooner I find him, the sooner you can have your helicopter back. So don't get in my way." He pulled the door open and just managed not to slam it behind him.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Alone in his office, Locke had the feeling that a hurricane had just blown out of the room.

He leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. That had been an interesting – conversation. Since taking over Archangel's position, he'd made it his business to know as much as possible about Stringfellow Hawke, reading and re-reading the computer files and paper documents. He was an incredible man, who'd only gotten away with the incredibly ballsy feat of stealing a billion-dollar piece of government equipment because Archangel had decided to turn a blind eye (in this case, literally) to Hawke's sheer blazing temerity, provided that every so often Hawke used Airwolf to do a job or two for him.

To Locke's mind, Archangel had been far too lenient with the man. There had been any number of times that he could have easily regained control of the helicopter. True, Hawke was a brilliant pilot, and a daring and lucky agent. But he didn't merit the kid-glove treatment he'd gotten from Archangel. The Deputy Director should have really put some effort into finding Airwolf and pulled the rug out from under Stringfellow Hawke. The fact that he hadn't was the main reason why he was currently warming a chair over seven thousand miles away.

Jason Locke didn't intend to repeat that mistake. Not that he was worried about being sent in disgrace to a Far Eastern purgatory of a job. He had ambitions other than climbing the ladder at the Firm. And he had two men who were going to help him achieve those ambitions. One was in California. The other was in Burma.

The door opened again. The man who strode in buoyantly was about Hawke's age, but that was the extent of any similarity. Locke's new visitor was blond, with a ready smile and cherubically innocent face that suggested complete trustworthiness and a penchant for helping little old ladies across the road.

Looks could be so deceiving.

"Major Rivers," said Locke, without lowering his gaze from the ceiling, "before coming into my office, would a polite knock be too much to ask for?"

"I suppose not. I just figured you'd want to know that I found it."

"Found what?"

"Airwolf."

That got Locke's attention.

"Where is it?"

Rivers had no intention of letting his moment of glory be hurried.

"Well, I had a hundred possibilities from multispectral sweeps – but the key was high resolution photographs and a bit of keen logic."

"Uh huh."

"You see, they've been in and out of their lair so often that I figured their prop wash must have formed a distinct pattern in the landscape. I compared recent satellite photos with the ones that Bogard took a couple of years ago - and here it is. Well, almost."

"Almost?"

"I've narrowed it down to three possibilities. It's got to be one of them." He produced a topographical map of California, which he opened with a flourish on Locke's desk. "Here, in the so-called Valley of the Gods. Here, in the Crystal Sands desert. Or here, about a hundred miles to the southwest."

Locke peered at the map. "So, in other words, you _haven't_ found it."

"O ye of little faith. By this time tomorrow, she'll be in our hands."

"She'd better be. You've already spent nearly two months on this. Rivers, do you believe in coincidence?"

"Of course. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, and all that."

"I don't." Locke laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back, staring once more at the ceiling. "Not in this business. But I had a visitor just before you showed up. Stringfellow Hawke."

Rivers winced. "That must not have been a fun meeting."

"Not particularly, no. But the odd thing was that Mr. Hawke had just received something in the mail today. Almost like a sign from heaven, telling him not only that his precious brother is still alive, but where he is."

Rivers looked relieved. "So the tape finally got to him!"

"No. No, it wasn't the goddamned tape." Locke dropped his hands and straightened, glaring at the other man. "I still don't know what happened to that. Bouchard said it got sent out. It should have been delivered weeks ago."

"So if it wasn't the tape, what was it?"

"His brother's high school ring," grated Locke.

"His _what_?" Rivers stared, then started to laugh. "You've got to be kidding me."

"It's no joke for Hawke, you can believe that. Fool seems to be sure that the ring belonged to his brother. Not only that, but somebody's conveniently scratched a set of coordinates on the inside of the band. He figures that's where St. John is."

"X marks the spot, huh?"

"Whether it does or doesn't, Hawke is hellbent on taking Airwolf to Burma, as soon as he can get her fueled and ready. So you better get your ass out in that desert as soon as you possibly can, Rivers, or that chicken will fly the coop right under our noses."

"What does it matter? I thought you wanted him to go to Burma all along. Bouchard knows Hawke hasn't gotten the tape yet, right? So maybe he decided to to try a Plan B." He grinned. "Just like you did."

"If the ring is Bouchard's idea, I like my Plan B a whole lot better than his. No, if we can get our hands on Airwolf right here in California, that's way better than letting Hawke go all the way to Burma. There's way too many things that can go wrong with that plan. The man's not playin' with a full deck when it comes to his brother, but otherwise he's a damn fine pilot and he thinks fast on his feet. Bouchard thinks he can take him out, but I'd just as soon not bet on it. You said this time tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'll fly out to the desert as soon as it's light, check out these sites, and scoop her up."

"You better be right, Major."

Rivers grinned, snapped a mock salute, and left. Alone again, Locke tapped thoughtfully on his desk with a pencil.

Maybe he should arrange for a Plan C, just in case.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Storm Season**_

_**Pt. 2  
**_

At the same time that Hawke and Caitlin were testing the wind drift compensator device, Michael Coldsmith Briggs III, codenamed Archangel, sometime Deputy Director of the Firm, now Director of Operations for Southeast Asia, was sitting in a dimly lit room whose main source of illumination was the indicator lights on an array of sophisticated audio equipment.

"I've put it through the best equalizers and noise reducers money can buy, sir," said a technician. "That's as good as it's gonna get."

"Play it again," sighed Archangel.

The technician pressed a button and a voice issued from the speakers. About the only positive identification that could be made from it was that it belonged to a man. It was distorted, almost squeakily high-pitched, and the condition of the tape was so poor that the words appeared to have been almost assembled at random.

"_String… Firm arranged…the storm season…Blackjack…"_

The words were slightly clearer than they'd been the last time he'd listened to the tape, but still made no more sense than they had the first time, or any of the half-dozen times in between. He shook his head and stood up.

"Thanks, Chick," he murmured to the technician, and left the room. He limped down the windowless hallway to the elevator and ascended three floors. It was raining again tonight, and the dampness made his left knee ache with a ferocity he'd almost forgotten in California.

The reception area outside his new office was tiny. Marlene was at the desk, pecking busily at her computer keyboard. "Marlene, what the hell are you doing here? It's nearly one AM."

"Just trying to get a few things finished up, sir."

"Well, leave it for tomorrow – later today – if you can, and get out of here."

"Yes, sir." He headed into his office. The typing continued unabated.

The new office was about half the size of the one he'd had at Knightsbridge, and the view outside the slit-like window was of the highrise office buildings along Makati's Ayala Avenue. There were worse things to look at than the central business district of Manila, but it was so different from the sun-baked hills surrounding Knightsbridge that he still occasionally got a shock when he looked out. He stared out now as he turned on his desktop computer and waited for it to boot up.

The transfer from California to the Filippines three weeks ago had been so fast that it had taken even him by surprise. It appeared to have been something in the nature of a military coup, and he suspected it was a punishment for not having retrieved Airwolf from the firm grasp of Stringfellow Hawke after three years. Although so far Jason Locke, his successor at Knightsbridge, hadn't succeeded either. Archangel's money was on Hawke.

He had heard nothing from the man for several months, ever since Hawke and Airwolf had blown Nick Kincaid and his lover, the exotic Isela Arragon, to bits over the Pacific Ocean and subsequently taken his nephew, Le Van, home to live with him. Archangel had been content to let matters rest for a time. Let both of them have some time to adjust – or for Hawke to completely blow a gasket trying to deal with an independent, energetic teenager. Or, for that matter, for Le to blow a gasket dealing with Hawke. Airwolf had become far too conspicuous lately, given Hawke's distressing (to Archangel) habit of using her to help solve the problems of what seemed like half the troubled population of California. Time to let the wolf lie low for awhile.

In the meantime, he'd been trying to adjust to his new job. Although the abrupt transfer, with no reason given, and the drop in rank galled him, he was too much of a professional to throw up his hands and leave in a huff. It might come to that eventually, but he was willing to give Manila a chance. Maybe lie low himself for a while until he could sort out who exactly was ranged against him, and had convinced Zeus – who at least knew Archangel's value, even if he found his Deputy Director to be an occasional thorn in his side – to put thirteen time zones between him and Knightsbridge. And he'd already been invited to play a few chukkers at the Manila Polo Club come January.

Not to mention the fact that some interesting intelligence had already come his way. Even if someone thought the Firm's headquarters for southeast Asia was a dead-letter office for Stringfellow Hawke's personal mail.

Thousands of miles away from Hawke and Airwolf, and it seemed they were still connected. It was almost spooky.

The tape had arrived on his desk in a large, heavy envelope with Hawke's name on it, and that was it. No address. It had been delivered to the reception area by a bicycle courier, and beyond that its origins were a mystery. Which was appropriate, considering the contents – an unlabelled tape, with apparently nothing but a couple of minutes of pure gibberish recorded on it, except for one snippet at the beginning.

Archangel hadn't considered for one moment sending the thing on to Hawke. Any suggestion that the garbled voice might be that of his long-lost brother St. John, and he'd be over in Manila so fast the dust clouds would take days to settle. Archangel wanted to do a little discreet investigation first.

The computer was ready. He entered his password, dug through several layers of security, then typed "Blackjack".

"Code name Blackjack: no such file" appeared in green letters.

He sighed. Of course it couldn't be that easy. He tried again, searching for a different keyword.

This time he seemed to have gotten lucky. "Operation Storm Season terminated July 12, 1985. Armstrong, W. (deceased). Kingsley, M. (deceased). Montrose, A. (inactive)."

"All right. Here we go," he murmured.

Montrose, Alexander was listed as inactive. A member of the U.S. Army from 1960 - 1968, employed by the Firm from 1969 - 1985. Under Operations, there were two ominous words - file deleted.

There was an address. Someplace called Milles, in Massachusetts.

He looked at his watch, even though he was perfectly aware of the time. One in the afternoon, in Washington. What were the chances?

He picked up the phone. The chances were pretty good, as it turned out.

"Marella? It's Michael."

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The rain had grown heavier during the evening, and now it was pounding on the cabin roof, almost drowning out the cosy hiss and crackle of the fire. Methodically, Hawke cleaned the supper dishes, then added another couple of logs to the blaze. Then he poured a generous slug of whisky and slumped on the sofa, looking without seeing at Tet twitching as he chased rabbits in his sleep. He wished the sound of the rain could drown out his own thoughts. If Le had been around, he could have put up a cheerful front, but now there was no reason to pretend, which in itself was another reason to have his guts churning.

He loved Le and wanted to do what was best for him. Le had stayed at Eagle Lake for most of the summer and appeared to enjoy life with his new Uncle String. But when school started, it quickly became apparent that what was best for him probably couldn't be provided by someone who lived like a semi-hermit. Le wanted friends his own age; he wanted to hang out with them, and to get involved with activities after school. With Hawke picking him up every day and whisking him back up to the cabin, that just couldn't happen. Besides, unlike Hawke, Le craved the excitement, sounds and lights of the city. Eagle Lake was fine for a holiday. But there was no way he wanted to live there all the time.

Hawke had considered moving into the city. If he truly wanted to do the right thing for Le, he realized, that was what it would come to. The thought filled him with such revulsion that it almost made him physically ill. He railed at himself with the thought that Dominic Santini had taken in not one but two orphans, and never complained about the sacrifices he'd had to make to raise them. What was wrong with himself, Hawke wondered, that he couldn't do the same thing?

In the end, with Le's approval, they'd reached a compromise. Two weeks ago, Le had moved in with Jimmy Oshiro, another helicopter pilot and a good friend of Hawke's from his army days. He and his family lived in suburbia, the same kind of neighbourhood where Le had lived with his aunt and her husband, and he had three kids close to Le's age. Hawke still felt guilty as hell, but the arrangement so far seemed to suit all concerned.

Then, too, there was Airwolf. He hadn't heard anything from Michael since Kincaid's death, and Airwolf had been resting undisturbed in the lair for several months, except for an occasional visit from himself or Dom for maintenance. If he was going to keep flying on missions for the Firm – well, he probably shouldn't, not with Le depending on him. Which meant sitting down for a heart to heart talk with Dom and Caitlin about Airwolf, and then handing her back to Archangel. In essence, he would have traded St. John for Le. And given up any hope of getting his brother back.

He'd put off making any decision about that all summer, and now Archangel had taken off for someplace in the general direction of East, without even bothering to notify Hawke, and let somebody take over his job who appeared a whole lot more hostile to the idea of Airwolf being in the hands of a free agent.

Maybe it was time to give up. It had been a hell of a ride for the last three years, but he'd gotten no closer to finding St. John, and he'd suffered as much heartbreak as he thought he could bear in the search for his brother. Sometimes it seemed like he was the butt of a huge cosmic joke – Mace Taggart, Colonel Vidor, and now Glen Carson, all men who claimed to know what had really happened to St. John. And Hawke had been forced to blow them all out of the sky. Maybe he should just forget about it all now, and concentrate on Le.

And ignore the ring, which was sitting on the table in front of him, glinting in the firelight.

He knew that Caitlin and Locke were both right. He had absolutely no proof that the ring was St. John's. The chances were probably a million to one against it. Even if did belong to his brother, had St. John really been the one to scratch those coordinates on it? It might just be a trap – although for what purpose, Hawke couldn't for the life of him understand. Or Caitlin might be right, and some sick soul out there might just be having a laugh at his expense. The last thing in the world he wanted right now was to go all the way to Burma just for another disappointment. What were the chances that St. John could have survived all these years as a prisoner of war? Maybe he could have done if Darren McBride had been telling the truth, and St. John had really been working undercover all this time. That part of the story had been borne out by the letter Hawke had found in his brother's foot locker, written in St. John's own handwriting.

Hawke would almost have preferred to find out that St. John had really been dead for seventeen years, than that he'd been free and not found some way in all that time to make contact with him. As plausible as McBride had been – and Hawke had to admit that, maybe because he'd been so desperate to find another link to St. John, he'd been readily taken in by the man – his story could have been nothing but complete bullshit, but Hawke still couldn't explain away that letter.

Well, maybe St. John had finally found a way.

He poured more whisky, and tried to think in terms of concrete logistics.

If he went to Burma, even with Airwolf, it was probably going to be next to impossible to accomplish any kind of rescue without backup. When he'd gone to Laos, he'd taken a whole team in addition to Dom and Airwolf. Would Dom want to go back again? Probably not. Hawke knew that while he had still managed to convince himself that he would know if St. John were truly dead, Dominic Santini felt otherwise. But Hawke also knew that if he said he was going to Burma, there was no way he could stop Dom from going too, whether he thought there was a chance of finding St. John alive or not. And that was a hell of a lot to ask from someone at Dom's time of life.

In any case, he couldn't do anything until Dom came back from San Remo. For one thing there were things he needed to talk over with him, and for another it wouldn't be fair to leave Caitlin in sole charge of Santini Air while both he and Dom were out of reach. Not that she wasn't completely capable of handling it, but it just wasn't very responsible. Besides, it would mean leaving her having to tell Dom about where he'd gone.

He picked up the ring and studied it, turning it around and around in his fingers.

To hell with it. He'd known all along that he would have to follow this lead. Even if it meant going to Burma alone. He got up and went over to the cupboard where he kept maps and charts, and began searching for the ones he would need.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Michael had said that finding Alexander Montrose wasn't top priority. Nevertheless, the morning after her conversation with him, Marella had hopped a flight to Boston and then picked up a rental car. She headed west along the Mass Turnpike for about an hour, in what would have been a pretty drive if the famed New England autumn colours hadn't been dulled by the rain which kept the windshield wipers sweeping slowly back and forth, then took a minor highway north. After that the route she'd marked out on the map led her down smaller and smaller roads, until, just beyond the hamlet of Milles, she found a mailbox atop a drunkenly-leaning post, with "Montrose" painted on the side. She turned the rental car hesitantly down the overgrown dirt lane, hoping there would be someplace to turn around. Having to back up all the way to the road wasn't an appealing prospect. As the car jolted over ruts, she took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to touch her service gun. She'd considered bringing someone along for backup, but had decided against it. If this Montrose really had anything to do with St. John Hawke, given the current climate at the Firm, the less people who knew about her trip the better. Besides, there was no reason to assume that the man was dangerous.

Then again, there was no reason to assume that he wasn't.

It would have solved so much if she could at least have phoned and spoken to him before arriving on his doorstep, but, like Stringfellow Hawke, he didn't own a telephone. It was going to a pretty big anticlimax if she got there and found he wasn't home.

The car bounced up a small hill and down the other side. At the bottom, in a clearing in the trees, Marella could see a dilapidated small frame house, sitting in the middle of an overgrown, junk-strewn yard. Somewhere a large-sounding dog began to bark.

Terrific.

Getting out of the car, she leaned back in to tap the horn. The noise sent the dog into an even louder frenzy of barking, but there was still no sign of life from the house. She loosened the gun in its holster and headed briskly towards the front door.

A large, muscular black man in a blue track suit suddenly appeared from around the side of the house. Montrose? Probably not; he didn't look the right age. Nor did he look in the least welcoming.

"Go back where you came from, lady," he rumbled. "All you're gonna get here is grief."

Marella let her hand rest on the gun underneath her coat and said coolly, "I'm here to see Alexander Montrose. I'm here to talk about Storm Season." She turned away from him and resumed her march to the house.

Moving surprisingly quickly, the man in the track suit grabbed hold of her right arm and began to twist it, trying to turn her back in the direction of her car. "I see I've got to make my point."

"Hatch!" yelled a voice from the direction of the house, just as Marella was about to acquaint him with one of her favorite judo moves. "Bring her in."

A man in a wheelchair had appeared at the front door. Dressed in an ancient green jacket and fraying sweater, bearded and unkempt, he looked far older than anyone ought to who had been on active duty with the Firm until a year ago. But his grip on the Colt pistol looked remarkably strong.

He wheeled the chair back a couple of feet to allow Marella past him. The interior of the house was as shabby as the outside, a good match for its owner. The one surprise was the large, new computer on the desk.

Montrose waved his gun at Marella. "Show me your pedigree."

Carefully, Marella pulled out her ID. Montrose inspected it carefully. It didn't appear to inspire any warm fellow feelings for a coworker in him. "I don't work for the Firm anymore. You should know that."

Marella put her ID away. "I'm here to find out about a man called St. John Hawke, Mr. Montrose. He may have had some connection with Operation Storm Season."

Montrose scowled, but at least he put the gun down. "When they rolled that up, I was all that was left. With a 9 mm slug in my spine and not very happy memories." He pointed accusingly at Marella. "You should know that. It's in the files."

"Well, unfortunately, most of our files have, shall we say, disappeared?"

"We don't even rate a file? That's gratitude."

"Did you know Hawke?"

Montrose thought for a moment, evidently deciding what information he wanted to share, if any. Finally he appeared to make up his mind. "The Firm financed a rescue mission in Cambodia a year ago, trying to get U.S. prisoners out of the hands of the Khmer Rouge. They hired an independent, a Brit mercenary called Colonel Ray Bouchard. We did what we came to do, but then Bouchard said he knew about another place, all the way up in Burma. It was real bad, he said, and he knew there were at least a dozen Americans. He asked for volunteers. I said I'd go.

"Well, we got into the prison all right. There was a guy called St. John Hawke there. He was sick, though. Real sick. Then everything went crazy, and Bouchard yelled that we could only take the men that could still run for it. Well, St. John couldn't run. He couldn't even walk. He wasn't getting out of there, and he knew it. He quick gave me something of his and told me to make sure it got to his brother back in the States.

"We got cut to ribbons on the way out. I caught this slug. The other two guys, Armstrong and Kingsley, didn't make it. I never saw Bouchard again. We pulled out two Americans, the only ones who could run fast enough. I'm sure as hell St. John Hawke never got out."

"You saw him go down?"

"No. But by the time we got out of there, there was nothing moving left."

Marella was silent for a moment. His look dared her to say she was sorry for what he'd been through. She didn't take him up on it.

Instead she said, "This thing that St. John gave you. What was it? What happened to it?"

"It was a high school ring. God knows how he'd kept hold of something like that. I sent it to his brother, like he asked. Some guy named Stringfellow, out in California."

"You did?" she said, startled. Hawke had been handed a legitimate clue as to his brother's whereabouts, and he hadn't followed it up? That was unbelievable.

"Oh, it took me awhile. I was in the VA hospital for months. After I came out, I had – " His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. " – other things to worry about. And it took me a long time to track this guy down. It was only last week I sent it."

"Did you tell him you'd seen his brother? Talked to him?"

"Naw. I figured I had enough problems of my own to deal with. I didn't want someone else's. Besides, like I told you, there's no way St. John survived. What was I supposed to talk to him about?"

Marella nodded. "Where was this prison?"

"Someplace in the east, not far from the border with Laos. I remember Kengtung was the closest town on the map. I couldn't find it again, so don't even bother asking."

There didn't seem to be any point in staying longer. Then she remembered something else Michael had mentioned. "Blackjack. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Blackjack," repeated Montrose. "That was Bouchard's nickname."

That was that, it seemed. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Montrose."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Just after eleven that morning, Locke got the call he'd been waiting for. Unfortunately, it wasn't the news he wanted to hear.

"I've found her," said Rivers without preamble, for once.

"And?"

"You won't _believe_ where he's got her. Inside a mountain."

"Inside a …?"

"Mountain. Tucked in so nice and snug you'd think the place was made for it."

"Can you get it out?"

"I _can_…"

"Why am I hearin' a very large _but_ in that sentence?"

"Because I don't think I can get it out right now. Like I said, it's tucked in nice and snug. Snug being the operative word. It's going to be interesting trying to get it out of there. But the big problem is the weather. FSS says there's a huge storm system moving in that will be here in a couple of hours. I may be crazy, but I'm not feeling particularly suicidal today. I'm not going to try moving a ship like that for the first time, in a place like that, in weather like that."

"Rivers – "

"Don't try playing the heavy with me, Jason. I'm not yanking your chain here. I'm not flying that thing anywhere till the system passes, and that's final. Even if I didn't give a damn about my own neck, what would be the point of the whole exercise if we crashed? Besides, what's the worst that can happen? Hawke waits a few hours and then takes off for Burma. We go back to Plan A."

Locke drummed his fingernails on his desk in an uncharacteristic display of tension. He had a major decision to make.

He'd already taken the precaution of getting copies of Santini Air's flight plans for today. Hawke was taking a charter down to Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego in the afternoon, assuming the weather was better along the coast than in the desert. He was scheduled to arrive at Miramar at three, and return to Van Nuys around five. That left Locke just under four hours to make his arrangements and have them carried out.

To hell with Bouchard. He'd always thought the man's plan was overly complicated in some respects and too simplistic in others. But Bouchard had St. John Hawke, St. John's brother had Airwolf, and Jason Locke had had precisely nothing. Now everything had changed. With Rivers sitting on the doorstep of Hawke's secret hiding place, there was no way Locke was going to take the chance of letting Airwolf take off for Burma. It was definitely time to activate Plan C.

"Jason? You still there?" said Rivers.

He took a deep breath.

"How long will it take you to get down to San Diego?"

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Who the hell had said it never rains in California, thought Hawke, peering through the downpour. Not that there was anything to see beyond the nose of Santini Air's Long Ranger but clouds. "Aw, c'mon," he muttered, muscling the stick back in position as yet another forty mile an hour wind gust caused the whole aircraft to judder. He was glad the two consultants he'd just flown down to Miramar weren't still with him. One of them had been a pilot himself, but the other had been frankly terrified of flying, white-knuckled even in the much lighter weather of the early afternoon. At least he hadn't suffered from airsickness.

Closer to Los Angeles the rain began to let up, although the wind was still fierce. He hit the radio button. "Van Nuys tower, this is Santini Air X-ray Tango Alpha ten miles out to the southwest at 1600 feet, requesting approach to Santini Air."

"X-ray Tango, approach approved as requested, altitude at your discretion," said a brisk female voice. "Winds one thirty-five at forty, altimeter two niner point eight, and we have a wind shear advisory. Look out, Hawke, it's gonna be bumpy."

One corner of Hawke's mouth twitched upward. "Bumpy. Thank you, Van Nuys." To someone who'd flown through hurricanes and skirted volcanic eruptions, these conditions were comparatively mild, but he couldn't exactly tell the air traffic controller that.

He'd just cleared the airport perimeter fence, two hundred feet above the ground, when the panel lit up with warning lights, the helicopter yawed violently to the left, and the engine cut out.

Reacting almost by instinct Hawke shoved the collective down hard, keeping the engine RPM up as much as possible. Right pedal and back on the stick, trying to stay straight and level. Even as he went through the motions he knew none of this was going to work. He didn't have enough height or speed to set up a safe autorotation. The Long Ranger was dropping with all the aerodynamic qualities of an anvil.

Five seconds later, it plowed into the concrete of the runway. The tip of one skid hit first, followed a split second later by the nose. The craft somersaulted amidst a deadly hail of glass fragments and metal debris before finally coming to rest on its side.

The remains of the tail rotor slowly came to a stop. The creak of wreckage settling in the driving rain was the only sound until the sirens of the emergency vehicles began to wail.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Three**_

Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

Dominic Santini felt like the sound of the various monitors was driving him crazy. The unsynchronized sounds weren't loud, but the fact that they formed a soundtrack to the sight of Stringfellow Hawke unconscious in an intensive care bed rubbed his nerves raw.

Hawke hadn't woken up since Dominic had arrived, two days after the crash. It had taken a panicking Caitlin over twenty-four hours to track him down on San Remo Island, and almost another twenty-four for him to get on a flight back to Los Angeles. By the time he'd gotten to the VA hospital, taking a cab straight from the airport, he was in a fair way to panicking himself. The sight of String hadn't reassured him much. There seemed to be tubes and wires and IV lines stuck into him everywhere, delivering oxygen, infusing drugs and saline and blood, draining fluids and more blood, monitoring his heart and vital signs. The doctor he'd spoken to before even being allowed to see String had talked gravely about a fractured pelvis, broken ribs, a punctured lung, lacerated internal organs, possible spinal damage and a severe concussion. The man hadn't said it in so many words, but he obviously thought the fact that Stringfellow Hawke was still alive was as much as anyone had a right to hope for.

He and Cait took turns watching at the bedside. So far the only apparent change had been the deepening of String's bruising, visible everywhere that wasn't covered in bandages.

Caitlin had called the Oshiros to break the news to Le. Le had wanted Jimmy to bring him to the hospital right away, which both Caitlin and Jimmy had vetoed. Dom was half afraid Le would show up anyway. It wasn't like the kid wasn't resourceful enough to get to the hospital on his own, and he was plenty mature for his age. But this was something he just didn't need to see. Not unless it came time to say goodbye.

Which it wouldn't. Dom kept telling Caitlin that. He wasn't sure either of them believed it.

Now it was late in the evening of the third day. They had finally agreed that one of them should go home, get some rest, and attend to business at the airfield in the morning. Caitlin had gone downstairs to get him a coffee before she left. When the door opened he hardly looked up, figuring it was Cait returning.

Instead, the woman who slipped into the room and quickly closed the door after herself was someone he'd never seen before.

She was Asian, and could have been anywhere in age between thirty and fifty, with shining black hair cut to the collar of her green trenchcoat and an oddly direct gaze. She had an air of quiet but definite authority. "Mr. Santini? My name is Faye."

He didn't think he'd ever seen her before, but all the same there was something slightly familiar about her. She didn't seem to be a nurse or any one of the hospital staff. "Yeah? So?"

She came over to the bedside and looked compassionately down at Hawke for a moment. "I'm very sorry this happened, Mr. Santini."

"Oh yeah? What do you know about it?"

"Nothing more than you do, I assure you. But I worked with Mr. Hawke several years ago, very briefly."

That would explain why she seemed familiar. "Tell me, Faye, you usually wear white?"

She smiled briefly. "I haven't for some time, but an old friend asked for my help. I realize this is not the best time, but my friend asked if I could prevail on you to meet with him. And Miss O'Shannessy too, of course," she added, as Caitlin came in with an extra-large cup of coffee.

"Why doesn't your old friend come and meet us here?" asked Dom, as Caitlin looked from one to the other in surprise.

"He doesn't feel that it would necessarily benefit his health to be seen here. Or yours, to be seen with him. But he asked me to tell you that it is vitally important that he speak with you."

"Oh, no. Not this time. I'm not flying any missions for Archangel, not while String's…" His voice petered out.

"This doesn't have anything to do with a mission. It has to do with St. John."

Dom and Caitlin looked at one another, startled. She'd told him about the ring that supposedly belonged to St. John, and about Hawke wanting to head to Burma. He'd mentally set the matter aside for the time being, not even wanting to think about where all that might lead. How the hell, he wondered, did Archangel know anything about it?

Well, only one way to find out.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Hawke had told Caitlin little about his last visit to Knightsbridge other than that Archangel had been transferred to somewhere in Asia and that his replacement was someone called Jason Locke. The look on Hawke's face clearly conveyed what he'd thought of Archangel's successor.

Caitlin had passed that on to Dom, who had mentally filed it away along with the information about St. John's ring. The Firm already knew that Stringfellow Hawke was out of commission; all they had to do was read the newspaper to find that out. Dom was in no hurry to meet with either Michael Coldsmith Briggs or Jason Locke to discuss Airwolf's future, but he'd been a little surprised that nobody from the Firm had contacted Santini Air yet. This seemed like a strange way to do it. He and Caitlin weren't even getting a ride in a white limo.

Instead, Faye had picked them up in the hospital's underground parking lot in an ordinary sedan, nicer looking than anything Dom or Caitlin drove, but still not luxe. Faye spoke little, and watched a lot. Dominic, sitting next to her in the front seat, didn't miss the frequent glances in the mirrors, the constant monitoring of the road around them that was a little like Hawke's alertness while flying Airwolf. He remembered what she'd said earlier about it not being of benefit to Archangel's health to be seen meeting with them. If the Firm's Deputy Director was having to sneak around to avoid being seen by his own agency, there must be big problems somewhere.

After half an hour's worth of circuitous driving, they arrived at a hotel near the international airport. Faye escorted them to a room on the third floor. This, too, was nowhere near Archangel's normal standards of luxury. But even more surprising was the sight of Michael Coldsmith Briggs himself, sitting in one of the room's two chairs, wearing an ordinary navy blue suit. Aside from the discreetly pinstriped shirt, there wasn't a scrap of white in sight.

He got to his feet as they came in and limped over. "Cait, Dom. It's good to see you." They shook hands, feeling oddly constrained, almost as though they were meeting for the first time. "How's Hawke doing?"

"In ICU. Critical condition." Dom shrugged. "Nobody's really talking."

"They can't tell you what they don't know, Dom," said Archangel gently.

"Yeah, well. What are you doing here, anyway? Why all the hush-hush? We were told you got shipped off to China or someplace."

One corner of Archangel's mouth quirked in a smile. "That's about it. I think somebody – or somebod_ies_ – wasn't happy about my continued failure to produce Airwolf, preferably accompanied by Hawke's head on a platter."

"But they can't do that to you!" said Caitlin indignantly. "You're the Deputy Director, for heaven's sake. How can they just send you off to China or Japan like that? With all the years you've worked for them, and everything you know about that job!"

"It's Manila, actually. And the Committee can – and frequently does – do whatever it wants. They weren't getting what they wanted from me."

"They were getting what they wanted," argued Dom. "Just not how they wanted it."

"Perhaps you'd like to advocate in my favour with the Committee," said Archangel drily.

"Not on your life."

"The Firm doesn't know you're back here, do they?" asked Caitlin. "What's so important that you had to come sneaking back like this? I know you and Hawke are friends, but it can't just be because you wanted to find out how he was."

Archangel limped back to the chair and gestured for the others to sit down. "Not exactly. Let me tell you a little bit about Manila. It's an interesting place. You can pick up the oddest bits of intelligence there."

"And you picked up something about St. John?"

Archangel nodded. There was a portable tape recorder on the table next to him. He pressed the play button, and the distorted voice squeaked through the speaker, "String…Firm arranged…the storm season…Blackjack."

"What the hell's that?" demanded Dom.

"Dom, you're probably the only person who can tell us. Do you think that could be St. John's voice?"

"Come on, Michael. How should I know? It could be St. John. It could be anybody. What makes you think it's him?"

Concisely, Archangel told them about the tape arriving mysteriously in Manila, and Marella's subsequent visit to Alexander Montrose in Massachusetts. Dom and Caitlin stared at one another. "You mean this guy actually _saw_ St. John, a year ago?"

"It sounds like it, yes."

"And he was the one that sent that ring to String?"

Archangel leaned forward. "Hawke actually got the ring, then?"

Dom groped in the breast pocket of his shirt and produced the ring with the high school crest. He put it in Archangel's outstretched hand. "String had it in his pocket when he went down," explained Caitlin. "They put it in with his effects."

"Any chance it's genuine?"

"Oh, it's a genuine Van Nuys High ring, all right," said Dom. "And St. John had one. Whether this is his…I can't tell that any more than I could say if that voice was St. John's or not."

"Look inside the band," said Caitlin. "See the numbers somebody scratched there?"

Archangel squinted. "Don't tell me… coordinates?"

"For somewhere in Burma."

"And Hawke thinks he'll find St. John there."

Caitlin nodded.

"It's where St. John _was_, a year ago," said Dom. "_If_ he's still alive. _If_ it was even him."

"Dominic, I think you're stealing my speech," said Archangel. "I'm usually the one advising Hawke not to go rushing off on the basis of such skimpy evidence."

"Don't you remember what String said, when we opened that coffin that was supposed to have St. John's body inside? 'Fourteen years of looking with no luck, then it comes all at once – no luck at all.' This is just the same. I _want_ to believe it. But I can't."

"It may not be luck at all," said Archangel thoughtfully.

"What are you talking about?"

"This tape. I have no idea how it got to me, but I can't see St. John, if he is still alive, having many opportunities to record a message and get it out. And why send it to the Firm? If he was able to get it out at all, why not send it to you, Dom? He wouldn't know that Hawke had any connection with the Firm. No, I think the tape is just a lure, and it was delivered to my office by mistake. It was meant to go to someone who _would_ make sure Hawke got it. Someone inside the Firm."

"You think someone wanted to trick String into going to Burma?"

"I think that, yes."

"But what for? No, don't tell me. You think this is all about Airwolf, don't you?"

"It usually is," said Archangel mildly. "I did warn Hawke when he brought her back from Libya that he was getting himself into a whole heap of trouble."

"Then what about the ring?" challenged Dom. "If this guy Montrose is telling the truth, then the ring's for real, and St. John's really at that spot. Or was. You can't have it both ways."

"But without the ring," said Caitlin, "String wouldn't have had any idea where to go looking for St. John."

"There's more on the tape. What you heard was the only part that one of the best sound technicians at the Firm could reconstruct. There could be detailed instructions. Or it could just be somebody's shopping list."

"Montrose confirmed Operation Storm Season," Faye pointed out, speaking for the first time. "He also mentioned Bouchard – Blackjack. I find it odd that Bouchard's name didn't show up in the Storm Season file along with Montrose's."

"The Firm isn't above sweeping dirt under the rug, so to speak. It may be that no one wanted the fact that this mission was being led by a freelancer to be kept on record. People might question why the job wasn't given to one of our own people."

"Nevertheless, what he told Marella at least partially confirmed what is on the tape. It sounds to me as if they both must be equally genuine – or equally false."

"What about the crash?" said Caitlin quietly. "Do you think that it maybe wasn't an accident?"

"Have either of you heard anything from the NTSB yet?"

Dominic shook his head.

"My gut feeling," said Archangel slowly, "and keep in mind I could be completely wrong, is that no, it wasn't an accident. Someone wanted Hawke out of the way. Probably the same somebody who was going to make sure the tape got to Hawke, only it wound up at the Firm's office in Manila instead. And because the tape never showed up where it was supposed to, the somebody decided on a more drastic step.

"Montrose may be perfectly genuine, and his sending that ring to Hawke may have just been a fantastic stroke of luck for whoever's setting this trap. Or – " He inclined his head towards Faye. " – he's involved in it as well. After all, we only have his word for the whole story. Whether he is or isn't, I'm quite sure it _is_ a trap."

"But you'd think they'd only go to all this trouble if they didn't know where Airwolf was," said Caitlin, trying to reason this through. "If they just tried to – to kill String, then it would only be because they didn't need him anymore, and they knew he'd try to stop them from taking her."

"Exactly. Someone already knows where she is."

There was a brief silence.

"Of course, the crash could have been an accident," said Faye. "After all, at the time Hawke was landing a storm was moving in. He may have run into a wind shear. It would be wise to wait for the report before we accuse anyone."

"String could have handled that weather," said Dominic firmly.

"In Airwolf," Faye pointed out. "A Long Ranger's a different matter."

"Yet another coincidence," said Archangel. "But you're right, Faye, of course. Although there is one more thing."

Faye lifted an eyebrow.

"I may have been booted out of Knightsbridge in disgrace, but I'm not totally devoid of contacts there. I've been told that Jason Locke has been meeting with a man called Mike Rivers. Helicopter pilot _par excellence_, probably almost in Hawke's league. Ex-Air Force major, discharged from the military three years ago, has a reputation for being a fixer and arranger."

"A fixer and arranger of what?"

Archangel shrugged. "Whatever you'd like."

"You think he sabotaged String's chopper?" said Dom, his fists clenching.

"I think the probability is fairly high that either he or Locke – or maybe even both – had something to do with it."

"Where do I find this Rivers?"

"Dominic Santini, don't you even _think_ of trying to find this Rivers person!" snapped Caitlin. As everyone stared at her, she rushed on, "We've already got enough problems here. The important thing is, if Rivers and Locke are really looking for Airwolf, and they haven't found her yet, is String still in danger?"

"He's in hospital in critical condition. He's no danger to anyone at the moment," said Archangel. "What worries me more right now is, are the two of _you_ in danger? Hawke's not the only one who knows where Airwolf is, or how to fly her."

"It would start looking pretty suspicious if both Cait and I had accidents too," said Dom.

Archangel sighed. "The storm system that's been hanging over most over of the southern half of the state is supposed to start dissipating around midday tomorrow. If nobody's found and moved Airwolf by this time, they'll probably wait till the weather clears. Dominic, I know that neither you nor Cait want to leave Hawke, but I'd sleep a whole lot better tonight if I knew that one of you had gotten Airwolf to a safe location."

"I'm not going all the way out to – to where the Lady is, tonight, just so you can have sweet dreams, Michael," growled Dom.

"Well, I will, then," said Caitlin.

Dom turned to stare at her, drop-jawed. "Cait, are you crazy? It's a long drive, the weather's still bad, and we don't know for sure that anything's wrong anyway!"

"And if it is, and we lose the Lady, do you want to explain that to String when he wakes up?" Caitlin fired back.

She had a point. "Well – well, where would we put her, anyway? There's not so many places around where you can just fly something that looks like Airwolf and tuck her away without anybody noticing!"

Archangel said, almost diffidently, "Actually, I know of a place that would probably work, at least in the short term."

"Oh yeah? Your garage?"

"Something like that. I've got a couple hundred acres about fifty miles north of here. There's nothing on the property but an old ranch house and there are no near neighbours. It's mostly pasture, but there are a few wooded areas where it would be easy enough to hide a helicopter for a few days."

"An old ranch?" said Caitlin, smiling a bit at this revelation. "I don't see you as a farming type, somehow."

"I was planning to fix it up and keep polo ponies there after I retire." He shrugged. "At the rate things are going, that time may come sooner rather than later."

"You're real good at complicated plots, Michael," said Dom, deeply suspicious of the offer, in fact of everything that they'd discussed, and not in the mood for dealing with mysterious rings and tapes. "How do I know this isn't just another setup to get Airwolf for the Firm?"

"Oh, I see. I'm supposed to have sent the ring and faked this tape, am I? And did I also rig Hawke's chopper to crash?"

"Stop it, both of you!" said Caitlin. Suddenly, between emotion and exhaustion, she felt almost ready to cry. "Dom, you know you don't mean that. Somebody out there may want String dead, or out of the way, but it's not Michael. And we've got to move Airwolf, and we've got to do it now, and better the devil you know than the one you don't."

"Thank you for the compliment, Cait," said Archangel drily. "Besides, it would only be for a few days."

"And then what?"

"Then…then, maybe we should think about a little trip to Burma."

Dominic nearly choked. "Burma? Oh, no. What the hell would we do that for? Didn't you say you thought it was a trap? And if you think I'm going to take Airwolf and fly off to someplace like that while String's so bad, you're crazy! And if you think we're gonna park her in your backyard just so you can take off in her as soon as my back's turned, you can think again! I'd just as soon leave her right where she is!"

"Mr. Santini," said Faye gently, "I know that you and Miss O'Shannessy have been going through hell the last two days. But if the worst happens, do you want to be left knowing that you've lost not only Hawke but Airwolf, and the last chance to bring St. John home?"

Dom glared daggers at her. "That's called emotional blackmail."

"I'm sorry. That is not my intention."

"I'll just bet it's not!"

"Dom, please, can we just move Airwolf for now, and worry about Burma later?" pleaded Caitlin.

Dom huffed. "Okay, we'll move Airwolf. But as far as any cockeyed idea of a trip to Burma goes, there ain't gonna be no _later_. And that's final."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The next morning he was back at the hospital. He and Caitlin had moved Airwolf out of the lair and flown her to Archangel's ranch. Aside from thunderstorms and gusty winds, the flight had been uneventful. Caitlin had stayed to keep an eye on her – abandoning the plan to go back to Van Nuys – and Faye had arrived shortly afterwards, to help keep watch, she'd said. She'd brought groceries and housekeeping supplies for several days.

Dominic had gotten a couple of hours' sleep and then headed back for the city. He felt every year of his age.

He spoke briefly to one of the doctors, who told him regretfully that there was no change in Hawke's condition. He went into Hawke's room and sat down heavily by the bedside. Back to that goddamned beeping noise, he thought. He tried to tell himself that the doctor was wrong, and String looked just a little bit better than yesterday.

"String?" he said, his voice hoarse with weariness. "It's me, Dom. I hope you can hear me. Don't you worry, I'm going to stay here till you come out of this. I lost Sally Ann, and I lost St. John. I'm not going to let you go, too."

Hawke's breathing seemed to change and deepen. His right hand twitched, then the fingers curled, with no more strength in the movement than a newborn kitten pawing. Dominic sat bolt upright, exhaustion temporarily forgotten. He started to grab hold of the hand, then slowed down and just took it gently between both his own, instead. "String!"

"Dom?" The voice wasn't even a whisper, just a stirring of breath.

"That's right, kid. You're in the hospital. Your chopper crashed. You busted a whole lot of stuff, but you're gonna be fine. Don't worry. Everything's gonna be fine."

"Dom…"

"Yeah, String. I'm right here." The pawing motion continued. Dom took a firmer grip on his hand.

Hawke's own situation didn't seem to be what was disturbing him. His voice gained a little strength. "St. John – if St. John is alive, please… please take Airwolf and find him… please…"

The voice faded. The hand stopped moving.

Dom sat in shocked silence for a moment. Feeling tears prickling in his eyes, he took a deep breath and said, "Sure I will, String. We'll find him. Don't you worry."

As if it could be that simple.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Four**_

Burma, night.

St. John stood in the hut that served as Bouchard's office. The mercenary was carefully examining St. John's almost-finished blowgun. Burke stood in the background, a short truncheon in one hand that he kept tapping meaningfully against the opposite palm.

"And what was this going to be?" purred Bouchard, squinting down the length of the bamboo tube. "Blowgun?" He chuckled. "I must confess you keep me amused wondering what sort of ingenious toy you're going to come up with next." He circled St. John, blowgun in hand.

"All made with you in mind," growled St. John.

Bouchard stopped.

"Airwolf, Hawke! I want to know about it."

"Can't hear you, Bouchard." St. John wished he really was deaf. He was sick and tired of hearing Bouchard rave on about Airwolf, whatever it was. How the hell did Bouchard expect him to know anything about it?

"Look, I'm tiring of this game." He tapped St. John on the chest with the blowgun. "So with or without your help, this will end soon."

St. John hoped like hell that it would.

Bouchard turned to look out the window at the darkened prison camp. Behind him, Burke moved toward St. John. He had a snarling grin on his face as he raised the truncheon.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The next morning, after what passed for breakfast, some of St. John's fellow prisoners were taken away by the guards for whatever tasks needed slave labor that day. After they were gone, the only sound in the cage was the drumming of rain on the corrugated metal roof.

Ackroyd had been one of the ones hauled away. St. John, battered and bloody, slumped in one corner, having tried to find a spot free of the barbed wire that was woven through the bamboo bars of the cage walls. He stared off into space, unaware that little Ming Ho had crept close to him until the man spoke in a low voice, practically into St. John's ear. Even in here, you had to be careful what you said and who might be listening when you said it.

"You saved my life," he said quietly, in his harsh, oddly-accented voice. "I am indebted."

"You don't owe me anything," sighed St. John. "We're all just trying to survive." He was hurting too much to carry a load of someone's gratitude around.

"My tradition demands it," said Ming Ho, insistent. "They are using you. Something big."

"We're all being used here."

"As you will. But preparations are being made to get everyone out." He aimed a grimy forefinger at St. John's chest. "Except yourself. Something else – months ago, before the rains started, I saw you with a tape in your hand. You gave it to Ackroyd."

St. John started. Bouchard had a cheap little cassette recorder in his office, and one night St. John had managed to slip away and make a quick recording. Ackroyd knew one of the guards. He'd said he could get the tape out of the camp and sent to the States. St. John had had less than two minutes to put enough information on that tape that, if it got to the right people, they would be able to mount a successful rescue. He'd wondered ever since then what had happened to it.

"I saw Ackroyd give the tape to Bouchard," said Ming Ho.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

St. John hadn't really planned what to do next. It just happened.

Two days after Ming Ho's revelation, he and Ackroyd had been told off to haul water from the stream that ran across one corner of the camp. More water. What a laugh.

On their third trip back to the stream, the guards a negligent distance away, St. John murmured to Ackroyd, "You got that tape of mine out, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I got it out. Maybe it never got to your brother. Or maybe he just never did anything about it. Maybe he wanted more proof that it was really you. That tape could have been sent by anybody, couldn't it? But I got it out. No sweat. I told you."

"With Bouchard acting as your courier, I'm not surprised."

Ackroyd slammed to a halt. "What are you talking about, man?"

"You know damn well, Ackroyd."

The other man dropped his water bucket. Almost too fast for St. John to catch the movement, he pulled a knife.

St. John dropped his own water bucket. The two men circled, crouching. The guards hadn't seen the knife. So long as Bouchard or Burke wasn't around, the prisoners were welcome to their own skirmishes as long as they didn't actually kill each other.

Ackroyd made a clumsy feint. St. John dodged back, then made a feint of his own, grabbing for his opponent's knife hand. Ackroyd clearly wasn't an expert at this; unfortunately, his lack of skill was more than counterbalanced by St. John's sorely depleted physical condition. One of St. John's feet skidded out from underneath him in the mud. Ackroyd pressed his advantage, coming at him fast with the knife aiming straight at St. John's heart. St. John flung up an arm, deflecting the thrust. With his other hand he got hold of Ackroyd's wrist and tightened his grip until the fingers opened. The next instant the knife was buried in Ackroyd's gut and St. John was running as fast as possible for the trees.

He could hear shouts behind him as the guards belatedly realized the extent of the trouble they'd been ignoring. There was a faint path heading into the trees from the stream, and he concentrated on making his best speed along it. That wouldn't have been easy even if he'd been in good shape. He struggled through the heavy undergrowth, trying to fend off overhanging vines, wondering why the hell he was even trying. He had nowhere to run to. Even if he managed to come across a farm or village, there was no way they would do anything other than hand him right back over to Bouchard.

But he still kept going. If the guards caught him, they would probably just drag him back to the camp. But if they had to shoot him to stop him from running, maybe he'd be lucky enough that it would be fatal. Then at least he might foil whatever Bouchard's scheme was.

He ran as long as he could. When he couldn't run any farther, he walked. When his legs gave out and he couldn't walk, he dragged himself along on hands and knees.

He lost his balance on a protruding root and went down. He stayed flat out in the dirt for a moment, gasping for breath, then hauled himself up again with the help of a tree trunk and kept going. The path was running uphill now, which wasn't the way he would have chosen to go, but by now he wasn't even thinking, just moving.

Then he fell a second time and simply lay on the ground until his vision cleared and he could breathe again. When he finally looked up, he thought he must have become delirious.

The path had brought him to the edge of a large clearing. In the clearing was a group of what looked like store mannequins, dressed in army fatigues. One or two even had cigarettes stuck to their mouths, and almost all of them had M16 rifles, either slung over shoulders or wedged into inanimate hands. From where St. John was lying they looked just like real soldiers, except they didn't move. Men were scurrying around, adding more dummies to the collection, adjusting and repositioning them.

Colonel Bouchard suddenly loomed up over the shoulder of one of the mannequins. St. John squinted up at him, trying to focus.

"I'd like you to meet my elite corps, Hawke," said Bouchard pleasantly, as if St. John had dropped in for a social visit. "These fine lads are going to get Airwolf for me."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

They were back to bloody Airwolf again.

St. John had been half-carried and half-dragged into the shack that was apparently serving as Bouchard's HQ. They had given him water. Since Bouchard and Burke had been in the middle of a meal, Bouchard had hospitably offered him some curried rice, which St. John had refused. He was desperately hungry, but there was no way he was going to break bread with those two. He'd rather gnaw on bamboo.

If he'd had the strength, he'd have been disgusted with himself. Somehow, even his escape attempt had played right into Bouchard's hands. It seemed that St. John Hawke staggering onto his doorstep had just made the man's day.

Meal over, Bouchard quit playing mine host. Burke dragged St. John to his feet.

"You see, Hawke," said Bouchard, "it doesn't matter anymore whether or not you know where Airwolf is. Your usefulness is almost over."

"I don't really care, Bouchard." God, why was he even bothering to reply?

"Ah, but you will when you see her," Bouchard assured him. "Besides, your brother will be flying her."

St. John merely stared at him, trying to absorb the words. String was coming here? Had he really gotten the tape after all?

"What do you say, Burke? Shall we give this man a program?"

Burke laughed. Ever the toady. "He's got a box seat, sir."

Bouchard gestured St. John forward toward the hut's small window. Burke stayed close behind him. "Please," he said with mock politeness, indicating that St. John should take another look at all the activity outside.

"As soon as your brother sees that little scene out there," said Bouchard, as confident as if he and Stringfellow had already rehearsed whatever script he'd devised, "he'll dust off the guards with some gunfire. Then he'll drop in for a running pinpoint pickup. Stage one – the moment the aircraft doors open, poison gas canisters are fired by remote. Convulsions to death – thirty seconds.

"Stage two – we attack while the aircraft's vulnerable on the ground. Destroy her rotors – the aircraft can't fly. You do see the simplicity of the plan – we repair the rotors, Airwolf's mine. However, it's a pity that – "

St. John's movement towards the window had taken him almost within arm's reach of a small open box containing an assortment of small, primitive weapons. Items taken from prisoners, no doubt. In fact, in a swift glance he thought he recognized the piece of bamboo Burke had taken from him two days ago. St. John had no idea why this stuff would be here rather than back at the main camp, but he didn't stop to wonder. He jabbed an elbow straight back into Burke's gut and in the ensuing commotion managed a feat of sleight of hand that surprised even himself with its neatness. A crude spearhead vanished under his shirt, even as Burke regained his breath and got an arm around St. John's throat, holding him tightly enough to crush his windpipe.

"Don't kill him!" yelled Bouchard. Sullenly, Burke released his grip.

"Not yet," added Bouchard.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

After that, St. John was forced to stand and watch for over an hour while Bouchard wandered around the mannequins, making final preparations for his ambush. Apparently the colonel found it amusing to give him a ringside seat to the spectacle of Stringfellow's death and the triumphant culmination of all Bouchard's plans.

He was checking the yellow canisters half-buried in the ground that were to release the poison gas when Burke emerged from the hut and came up to him. "The word?" said Bouchard softly.

Burke was looking slightly apprehensive, and lowered his voice even more. "The brother's in hospital. Chopper crash. May not live."

Bouchard's face began to darken. Burke hurried on, "But your friend says somebody else may be coming."

"Ah." Bouchard strolled back to St. John, who had strained his ears but been unable to hear the exchange. Stopping in front of his prisoner, he said, "Well, it looks like you won't have to spend much more time with us. Airwolf is on its way."

"He won't fall for it, Bouchard," said St. John contemptuously.

"Oh, you think these scarecrows won't fool a state of the art machine?" drawled Bouchard.

"They wouldn't fool a toaster."

Bouchard smiled smugly. "Each one's equipped with a heat coil to fool a thermal scan – even sound loops to produce heartbeats on stethoscopic pickups. Perfect, isn't it?"

St. John couldn't think of a reply.

The final piece of set dressing was another cage, this one barely large enough to contain one man, several yards away from the group of phony soldiers. St. John was herded inside at riflepoint and the door locked behind him. A pair of guards took up station close by. Bouchard and Burke walked away. After they'd gone, nothing in the clearing moved.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

A day and a half after Stringfellow Hawke had begged Dominic to search for St. John, Airwolf quietly departed on the first leg of her flight to Burma.

The intervening time had been spent in making plans and discreetly loading supplies. Hawke had kept a small stockpile of ammunition in the Lair, and Dominic had grabbed as much as he could when he'd moved the helicopter to Archangel's ranch. Even so, they'd be going up against whatever awaited them in Burma without Airwolf's full complement of weaponry.

Archangel had announced that he intended to go with them. Dominic wasn't sure whether he was pleased with that or not. Even though the man had flown with them several times over the last couple of years, it still didn't sit well with Dominic to have the Firm's Deputy Director parked in one of Airwolf's seats. Besides, one more passenger meant higher fuel consumption – a consideration giving how far they would be flying – and an extremely cramped cockpit on the way home, assuming they found anyone to bring home. On the other hand, Archangel had proven himself several times to be a reliable backup in the field, not afraid to get his white suit dirty, so to speak. And Lord knew they were probably going to need all the help they could get.

Archangel had arranged for Faye to keep a discreet eye on Hawke in the hospital. Her employment with the Firm had been before Locke's time, so if anyone was lurking around who might wish harm to Hawke, she shouldn't be recognized. He would have liked to have had Marella there as well, just in case, but Locke knew her by sight. Faye was tough and competent and could deal with anything short of an armed invasion of the hospital.

They lifted off just before midnight. Five hours later they landed at a World War II-vintage airstrip on a tiny island at the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The whole place seemed to be lit by nothing more than two sodium lights, but that might have been deliberate discretion. A helicopter with an unfamiliar silhouette was lurking by a darkened hangar, and Dominic was almost positive it had Russian markings.

Dominic had flown them to the Aleutians. Caitlin took over after that, while Archangel seemed to doze in the co-pilot's seat. With radar suppression set at maximum, Airwolf cruised at three hundred knots over the Pacific. It was nearly 2700 miles to their next planned refueling stop, at the northern tip of Japan, practically within spitting distance of Russian territory. After that they would head over the Sea of Japan, skimming the tip of South Korea, then inland over China to Burma. Not exactly an itinerary for a pleasure jaunt.

Sitting in Airwolf's darkened and silent cabin – none of them felt like talking – Dominic tried to tune out the voice of reason that screamed at him that this was a really, really bad idea. St. John, from an eyewitness account, probably wasn't even alive any more. Even if by some infinitesimal chance he was, by Archangel's own reckoning they were likely headed straight into a trap of some kind. Dom had no idea what might be waiting for them at the coordinates someone had painstakingly scratched into that high school ring, but whatever it was, he was damn sure he wasn't going to like it. He looked over his console at the other members of Airwolf's crew. A fresh-faced girl who looked like she hardly weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, a guy with a cane and an eyepatch, and an over-the-hill chopper jockey – they didn't exactly look like Delta Force.

Worst of all, if they returned empty-handed, how was he going to break the news to String?

Well, he and String had flown into plenty of other crazy places, although the stakes had rarely been this high. And they had Airwolf, after all. And even if they didn't find St. John alive, they might find some real, incontrovertible proof of his death. Even that would be something for String to have, cold comfort though it was. Then hopefully he could move on, settle down, concentrate on raising Le Van.

Dom's eyes went again to the back of Caitlin's head. Maybe – nah, leave well enough alone, you old _yenta. _Leave it to the two of them to work out. They'd both had too much hurt in the past little while to be thinking about any kind of romantic stuff. Anyway, first they had to get to Burma and get home again in one piece, and String had to get better, get out of that damned hospital. He didn't know if String even realized that the three of them had left on the quest that should have been his.

In front of him, Archangel stirred and stretched as much as he could in the limited space. Dom poured a mug of coffee from a thermos and handed it to him. Archangel ceremoniously offered it to Caitlin, who shook her head. He drank it slowly, then handed the empty cup back to Dom with a nod of thanks.

Settling back in his seat, he inquired, "So, has anyone read any good books lately?"

He meant it as a way to lighten the tension, although he wasn't averse to a little conversation on literary subjects, but he was a bit surprised when Dominic answered immediately, "Yeah, I'm working on a good mystery right now. There's this guy who works for a top secret spy agency, see, and one day he just decides to take off on some crazy mission to the other side of the world, and I can't figure out why he'd want to do something like that."

Archangel twisted in his seat to look directly at the other man. "There might be plenty of reasons."

"Well, so far the only one I can come up with is that he wants to be in on the ground floor if a certain piece of top secret high-tech equipment gets handed over to the people he works for. That might buy him a ticket back to his old job."

"The thought did cross my mind," Archangel admitted without rancor. "Manila has its points, but it's not where I'd planned to be at this stage of my career. Certainly if I regained possession of Airwolf, the Committee would look more favorably on me than they have been lately. So there you are – my ulterior motive, in a nutshell."

Dominic guffawed. "Guess Zeus still hasn't forgiven you for trying to shoot him last year, has he?"

"He does seem to have a pretty good memory for assassination attempts. Can't blame the man for that."

"Or for you being right about Harlan Jenkins and Redwolf?" Caitlin put in.

"That might have been an even worse folly on my part," said Archangel wryly. "But seriously, I still don't think it would be to the Firm's benefit to have direct control over this ship, for the same reason I gave Hawke when he brought her home from Libya. We wouldn't be able to hang onto it for five minutes, with all the other agencies that want it. We'd be better off negotiating for what we wanted in the first place – reimbursement of our original development costs, plus the first new ships when Airwolf goes into production. Even Senator Dietz could see that.

"What I can't seem to make the Committee understand is that, with Hawke flying her, the Firm has accomplished more than we could ever have hoped for originally. I honestly believe that even if Hawke were to hand Airwolf back to us tomorrow, we'd be better off with the current arrangement. So there you go, Dom. Does that set your mind at rest?"

Caitlin said softly, "And what if Hawke doesn't fly her again?"

"That's Hawke's decision," said Archangel briefly.

None of them really wanted to speculate about what might happen if Hawke wasn't around to make that decision.

"And you owe him," mused Dominic.

"I can't always honor my obligations, Dom. But I do try."

"Hmm." They flew on in silence for a moment longer, then he added, "Well, in that case, welcome aboard."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''

They stopped to refuel one last time at an airstrip in northwest Laos that Dom had used when he and Hawke had been following a lead on St. John the year before. Then they crossed the border, landing at dusk by the bank of a narrow river that tumbled down through steep forested hills to join the Mekong ten miles to the east. According to Airwolf's scanners there was an isolated village three and a half miles away; other than that, there was nothing close by but wildlife.

Reconnaisance would have to wait till the morning. They were all too tired after the long flight to do anything more than make a rough camp. The weather was damp and drizzly, the temperature far cooler than they'd expected. Dom made a small fire as close to Airwolf as he could safely build it. They boiled water for coffee and the freeze-dried meal packs, then retreated to the helicopter's cabin. They took watch in turns, one on guard while the other two tried to sleep.

Caitlin had the final watch. The hours seemed to last at least twice as long as normal, until she began to wonder if her wristwatch and Airwolf's time display had somehow both slowed down in this time zone. She spent the time shivering with cold and nerves, jumping at unusual noises in the trees, and worrying alternately about Hawke and their mission. At dawn she was glad to poke the fire into life again and put the pot back on for another batch of instant coffee, stretching out her hands gratefully to the flames while waiting for the water to boil.

The aroma brought both Dominic and Michael outside, yawning and stretching. Michael was limping heavily. Caitlin didn't suppose that all that time spent sitting in one position had helped his leg any. She was probably twenty years younger than he was and had all her limbs intact, and she felt stiff and sore herself. She didn't even want to think about what he must be feeling like.

Dom, rubbing at the small of his back, didn't look much better. If they looked this rough, thought Caitlin, what shape was St. John likely to be in?

After a quick and mostly silent breakfast they lifted off again, Dom at the controls. They had already agreed that they would first check out the area at the coordinates scratched in the ring Montrose had sent to Hawke. If there was nothing there, they would broaden the search. Dom had been unwilling to set a time limit. He couldn't bear the thought of returning to String without news of some kind, but realistically, they could only stay in the area for about two or three days. After that their supplies would be running out, and they would probably have attracted unwanted attention.

It took fifteen minutes to reach the spot. Dom lowered Airwolf gently to the ground.

Even if the scanners hadn't told them the area was unoccupied, it was obvious as they looked around that no one had been here for quite some time. There were bullet-ridden remains of several flimsy buildings and a couple of scorched vehicles. In a cell inside one of the buildings they found two bodies, both picked down to bones by the local scavengers. If one of them was St. John's, there was no way to tell.

Caitlin and Archangel went through the other buildings in search of an office or headquarters, in case there were any records remaining. They found a battered metal filing cabinet, but it had been emptied.

Silently they returned to Airwolf and began a systematic search.

By noon they'd quartered an area of a hundred square miles centered on the ravaged prison camp. Airwolf's scanners had picked up three hill villages. The haphazard collections of thatched-roof structures built on stilts gave no indication that they hid prisoners. They also found a series of caves and tunnels in one nearly vertical hillside; Dominic landed with difficulty on a narrow rocky plateau and he and Caitlin scrambled back up the hillside to have a look inside. They found a recently-used firepit, and a couple of blankets and cooking pots, but if there were any captives being held there, they were hidden far deeper inside the complex than the two pilots had any intention of going without more powerful flashlights and more backup.

When they got back to Airwolf, there was no need for Archangel to ask if they'd found anything. The discouraged look on Dominic's face and the slump to his shoulders said it all.

"This is crazy," the older man said bitterly, climbing into the engineer's spot while Caitlin took over the pilot's seat. "Not even the Lady can pick out one single human in all this. Needles in haystacks don't even come close."

"Not thinking of giving up already, are you?" asked Michael.

"Naw, of course not. I just wish there was a better way, that's all."

"Let's give it another hour, then stop for a break," suggested Caitlin. "Must be just about time for another of those gourmet meals."

"A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou," sighed Archangel wistfully. Caitlin gave him an odd look. Dominic snorted. "And I thought _I_ was the one who was starting to crack up."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Two days later they had covered almost all of the rough triangle of eastern Burma as well as some of the country just over the borders of Laos and Thailand. Archangel was adamant about not crossing into Chinese airspace, and Dominic had reluctantly agreed with him. They had startled dozens of occupants of isolated villagers, and on the third morning had to take evasive action to avoid being seen by a flight of three camouflage-painted Sokol helicopters with the markings of the Burmese Air Force, trolling low over the treetops, probably in search of the mysterious foreign aircraft.

"Do you get the feeling we've probably outstayed our welcome around here?" said Archangel.

"Yeah, well, I've got something that could be another village just about three miles northeast of here. Cait, take a heading of 037."

"037, roger." Airwolf's nose swung to the right.

"Another village," Dominic reported in a moment. "Funny. It looks deserted. Why would people pack up and leave a perfectly good – whoa, hold on a moment. What's that?"

By now they could all see the "village", which consisted of a long, low thatched building, another that was small and square, a couple of miscellaneous sheds, and an odd-looking structure in the middle.

"Cage," said Archangel tersely. "Cait, set down. Let's have a closer look."

They set down in a clear area which looked like it had been used as a landing area by another helicopter, and recently. Drawing their sidearms, the three began to cautiously quarter the camp.

The largest building turned out to be a barracks, housing about a dozen men. The smaller building had obviously been the HQ, such as it was. Like the first camp they'd found, it too had been cleared out, lock, stock, and typewriter, but only a short time ago. They looked around, puzzled.

Caitlin spotted something shiny on the floor and bent down. It was the corner of a glossy 5 x 7 photograph, sticking out from under a sturdy desk, the one piece of furniture left in the room. She tugged it out.

It was a close-up shot of a man in military fatigues leaning against a black helicopter. The man had a confident expression, almost a sneer, on his thick-lipped face as he stared directly at the camera. The eyes that appeared to be looking straight at them had a reptilian coldness to them. Above him, there was an insignia painted on the side of the helicopter. Part of a playing card - a jack of spades, gripping a handful of lightning bolts in one upraised fist.

Archangel grabbed the photo from Caitlin, staring closely at it. "Blackjack," he said. "Bouchard."

"I thought he was supposed to be dead," said Dom, stunned.

"Montrose didn't say that. He only said he never saw him again after Storm Season went wrong. Just like he never saw St. John again."

Dom's eyes widened. "You think St. John could have been here?"

"If he was, then where'd he go?" asked Caitlin practically.

"I have no idea," replied Archangel. "But if there's a chance Ray Bouchard could be around here somewhere, I'd feel a lot happier back in Airwolf."

They climbed back in, Archangel still holding the photograph.

Lifting off, Dom began to check the scanners again. "I'm getting something else here. Another village, four and a half miles north of here." His voice turned grim. "This one's got radar."

They looked at each other.

"Let's go," said Archangel.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

In Bouchard's fake camp, everything was quiet. Everything had been quiet since St. John had been locked in the cage, three days earlier. No Airwolf had shown up, whatever that was. No Stringfellow either. Bouchard had been growing increasingly tense.

St. John still had the spearhead he'd stolen from Bouchard's office, tucked inside his shirt. But he'd had no chance to use it. Bouchard, apparently wanting to make sure that nothing went wrong with his plan at the last moment, kept armed guards watching outside the cage around the clock. These were more alert than the ones at the old camp. In three whole days he hadn't made a move that they hadn't noticed. He'd found a spot where he might be able to use the spearhead. The cage door was secured with a heavy chain and a padlock, but the upper hinge was nearly rusted through and had been reinforced with a length of nylon rope. Five minutes and he could probably saw through it. So far he hadn't had five seconds. Even in the dark, the guards were alert.

Another short, sharp rainshower came down. St. John huddled in one corner of the cage and shivered. Tattered army fatigues were no protection against the elements. He coughed and coughed again. That hurt.

Probably String wasn't coming at all. He hoped not. He didn't want the last sight of his brother to be of him dying from Bouchard's poison gas.

The rain passed. Bouchard emerged from the hut and began yet another inspection of his phony army. St. John began to cough again, and Bouchard's eyes travelled in his direction. The look in the eyes was almost as lethal as the poison gas.

Suddenly Burke burst out of the hut. "Got a target on radar, closing in at over three hundred knots, sir. It's too fast for a gunship, isn't it?"

A grin began to spread across Bouchard's face. "Not this one. Get into position."

In Airwolf's cabin Archangel was tensely counting down the numbers. "Objective four miles. Three point five. Three."

"Large forces encircling a target," said Dominic briskly. "Fixed positions. Somebody's expecting us. All weapons systems activated."

Everyone on the ground could hear the eerie howl of Airwolf approaching. St. John didn't know what kind of aircraft could make that sound, but he was on his feet, shaking the door of the cage as hard as he could, desperately trying to get out. A sleek black and white helicopter flashed overhead, guns deployed from sponsons on either side of the craft, and for a moment he stopped moving and simply stared. It banked hard and started another run over the clearing. St. John came out of his daze and started motioning towards the trees, trying to indicate that the ship shouldn't come any closer.

"Holy shit!" gasped Burke.

Bouchard was looking exultant. "That's a military machine, Burke! And it's about to be mine!"

Dominic had a clear view from Airwolf's cameras of the frantically waving figure in the cage. Much older, almost skeletally thin, heavy beard, hair thin and unkempt, but still – "That's him. That's St. John!"

"Let's get him!" said Caitlin. Under her helmet, she had an ear to ear grin.

"Hold on a second, Cait. Something's wrong down there," said Michael, frowning.

"What? Come on, Michael, we can take out the guards no problem and scoop up St. John."

"Why aren't they turning around to look at us? Dom, run another scan of the area. Find their backups."

"Scanning," said Dom, dragging his attention back to the job, although his face had a grin to match Caitlin's. Through their helmets they could all hear the sound of steady heartbeats. Dom's smile began to fade. "Seventy-two. . . seventy-two. . . every man in the firing squad has identical heart rates."

"That's impossible," said Caitlin.

"Keep scanning," said Michael. "Let's see what else they've got waiting for us."

Airwolf disappeared from view of the men on the ground. "He must have smelled the trap," said Burke uneasily.

"He'll be back," said Bouchard. "Place patrols on all the approaches."

Burke whistled to the guards outside St. John's cage, and pointed. Along with several other men, they hurried into the trees. Burke headed back into the hut to watch the radar.

_Now._

St. John pulled out the spearhead and began sawing on the nylon rope. Bouchard was too busy scanning the sky for signs of Airwolf's return to notice his activity.

"I've got one chopper," said Dominic. "Aerospatiale Gazelle, armed with rockets. No heavy artillery. Light ground personnel."

"What kind of trap _is_ this?" said Caitlin, completely puzzled.

"I don't know," said Michael. "But St. John's the bait."

"Looks like we've got no choice," said Dom. "We've got to go in."

Caitlin sat up straighter in her seat and squared her shoulders. "Okay. Let's fall for the trap."

''''''''''''''''''''''''

Burke had come back to report that Airwolf was returning, two miles out.

"This is it," Bouchard told him. "They'll take out the dummies first, then drop in. Go fire up the chopper, Burke."

Burke hurried toward the Gazelle, hidden behind the hut at the edge of the trees. Bouchard went to the hut and stood in the doorway, eyes on the sky, one hand stretching inside to hover over a button on a control panel marked "Gas".

Airwolf approached, dropping closer and closer to the ground. In the cage, St. John waved frantically. "String!" he yelled as loudly as he could. "Stay away! They're gonna kill you!" Of course String couldn't hear him. Over the sound of the rotors he could barely hear himself. The rope on the door hinge was hanging on just a few stubborn threads, but the black and white chopper was now less than ten feet from the ground. The port hatch was already starting to swing open.

Bouchard's finger pressed the button. Gas billowed out from the hidden canisters in bright yellow clouds.

"What the hell's that?" demanded Caitlin.

"Poison gas!" shouted Dominic.

Michael slammed the hatch shut again. The final strands of the rope snapped and St. John scrambled out of the cage. "Cait, chain guns! Give him some cover!"

The rain returned, a sudden heavy downpour that helped to keep the clouds of gas from dispersing far from the canisters. Caitlin maneuvered Airwolf away from the running figure of St. John and swept the open area with the guns, blasting mannequins into debris. Bouchard had come a few cautious yards from the hut in order to get a better view of what should have been Airwolf's crew emerging and dying; as soon as Caitlin opened fire he ran for the door again. St. John, one hand over his mouth and nose, changed direction to follow him.

"Cait, behind us!" snapped Dom.

The black Gazelle, with Burke at the controls, rose swiftly into view. It had barely gotten off the ground before beginning to fire at them. Caitlin took them higher to gain some maneuvering room.

Staggering with exertion and the effects of the gas, St. John burst into the hut and flung himself on Bouchard. With one punch, the other man easily sent him flying into the corner of the room and turned to snatch up an M16 from where it leaned in one corner. St. John took a deep breath, gathered every ounce of strength and resolution he possessed, and launched himself at Bouchard again. The other man spun around and knocked him across the rickety table that occupied the middle of the room. A large-scale map of the area was spread out on it, with the point of a Bowie knife driven in to it to act as a marker. The table splintered under St. John's weight, and as it collapsed Bouchard grabbed the knife, yanking it clear of the tabletop, and flung himself at St. John with it.

"Sorry… you won't be around to see your brother's death," he snarled, as the two men struggled amidst the wreckage of the table.

From somewhere above them came an almighty explosion, and a few seconds later shattered fragments of the Gazelle, some of them on fire, began to rain down on the camp, mingled with the water that continued to fall. Bouchard stared in uncomprehending rage as a piece of hull bearing the painted Blackjack emblem crashed to the ground not far from the cage that had held St. John.

He turned back to his prisoner, lips drawn back in a rictus of fury, yelling a denial at St. John, at Airwolf, at whatever fates had caused his long-cherished plan to go awry. It was too late. St. John had taken advantage of his distraction to pull the knife free from Bouchard's grip.

Bouchard was still howling, "_No!_" as St. John plunged the knife into his heart.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

With a soft snarling sound, Airwolf settled cautiously to the ground amidst what was left of the camp. Pieces of shattered mannequins were scattered everywhere, looking ghoulishly realistic in the shreds of their uniforms. The lack of blood was the only giveaway of the fact that they weren't human remains. The poison gas had already lost most of its lethalness. The rain had almost ceased.

St. John wanted to walk out to meet the helicopter but found that his legs couldn't carry him any further than the doorway of the hut. He stayed there, the bullet-splintered doorframe the only thing preventing him from falling down, and managed a weak wave as the hatch opened and a man climbed out.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''

Stringfellow Hawke's condition changed little in five days. He had woken a few times, but with no familiar faces there to respond to, had made little effort to speak or move.

Faye slipped in occasionally to check on him. Three days after the rescue team had left for Burma, her chosen time was just before five AM, when most of the night staff were on break and the corridors were all but deserted. Hawke's breathing was so shallow that she had to check the monitors to make sure he was still alive. Faye had seen her share of dead men, but looking at Hawke now, she had to repress a shiver.

If Archangel and the others don't come back safely, she thought, I wonder if this man will ever wake up. He might fade away and die here. After everything that's happened, he doesn't have any hope left in him. Not even that boy that he wants to believe is his brother's son will be enough to keep him here. His brother's dead, his brother's not dead, maybe his brother sent him a message, maybe his closest friends will die because of that message…

As she watched, a single tear leaked out from behind his closed eyelids. She leaned forward and gently wiped it away. "Hold on, Hawke," she said in a low voice. "Just give them a bit more time."

Forty-eight hours after that visit, Hawke's eyes opened slightly. As if pulled by an invisible string, his head turned toward the doorway of the room. At first he could only see a blurry shadow. He blinked hard, and finally managed to make the blur resolve into a man's face. The man was looking at him with every bit of the shocked disbelief that he felt himself.

"St. John?" he whispered. "Is that you?"

The man came lurching across the room, as if his own legs could barely support him. "You bet, little brother," he said, his voice breaking. He sat on the edge of the bed and enfolded Hawke in his arms, regardless of all the tubes and wires. Hawke returned the embrace with equal fervor. Now his tears began in earnest.

"St. John, there's so much I've got to tell you…"

"I know. I know." St. John's own tears were dampening his brother's shoulder.

"Don't let me die," whispered Hawke.

That wasn't what St. John had expected to hear. He held Hawke more tightly. "You're not going to die, not when I've just come back. I won't let you."

"I don't want to die in this place…"

"You won't, String. I promise you. I promise."

The brothers clung as if their hold on each other was their grip on life itself, until finally the younger Hawke's eyes closed and his arms slackened. The elder laid him down carefully. He pulled a tissue from a box by the bedside and gently wiped his brother's tear-streaked face, then his own.

He looked around at the clean hospital room, crowded with equipment that was apparently all dedicated to keeping its occupant alive. What, in what seemed like this land of ease and plenty, had caused his brother to make that heartbreaking plea? The String he remembered hadn't had much more than the usual healthy person's aversion to hospitals. Where had that desperation come from? It was something he'd wished many, many times himself in the past sixteen years. Had probably said out loud. But why String? Why here?

_God, is it because of me?_

Didn't matter now. Weary as he was, it looked like he still had one more task ahead of him. He didn't have the strength to move String himself; he didn't know where he could take him to, or how.

So he would just have to stay here and make sure his brother didn't die.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Five**_

"What are you grinning about?"

"Dunno. Guess I just never thought we'd be having this conversation, that's all."

"Well, what did you think we'd be talking about?"

"Guess I just never wanted to think that far ahead, in case it didn't happen."

"Me, I thought about it a lot. Didn't expect to find you lookin' so ugly, though."

"Hey, you're not exactly an oil painting yourself. How long did they say it was gonna take you to put some weight on and stop lookin' like an old stick?"

"How long's it gonna take you to get out of that bed and start making yourself useful?" countered St. John. "I'm waiting for you to get well enough so we can go up to the cabin and you can cook me a decent meal. Steak and mashed potatoes and ice cream, and enough beer to fill a bathtub."

"Yeah," sighed Hawke. "I'd always planned on doing that. I always figured you'd need some looking after when you came back. Guess you're still gonna have to wait a while."

In three days, Hawke's condition had improved far past the expectations of the medical staff. He was still in bed and was going to stay there for a while, but it was if happiness and the will to live had been infusing into his veins along with all the IV solutions ever since St. John's return. The swelling had gone down and the bruising had faded. The medical staff were still being cautious in their optimism, but had upgraded his condition from critical to serious but stable.

St. John had been examined and pronounced surprisingly healthy, all things considered. He'd been admitted to the VA hospital to be treated for malnutrition and several entrenched infections, including malaria and hepatitis and now pneumonia, as well as for a psychiatric evaluation. Worse than disease, there had actually been reporters, apparently intent on drumming up a hero's welcome for him. Appalled, he'd asked the doctors to make sure they didn't get in. He didn't feel like a hero, didn't feel like becoming a poster boy for anything that – he guessed – might have political ramifications, and really didn't feel like talking to a bunch of strangers with tape recorders and cameras about what he'd been through.

He'd pleaded to be allowed to stay in his brother's room, been turned down flat since it was in the ICU, but had spent most of his time there anyway. Dom had found him some clothes. Nothing fit, but he didn't care. They were clean. Anything was better than the remnants of old fatigues that had been his sole wardrobe for longer than he could remember.

Now he looked his younger brother over and said, "You're not gonna be able to look after anyone at all if all you can still cook is pork 'n beans and macaroni 'n cheese."

"I've moved on a bit since those days," said Hawke, deadpan.

Dominic, in the room's other chair, chuckled and said, "String's a pretty good cook now, if you like vegetarian."

St. John's eyes swivelled back towards his brother. "You? A vegetarian? The guy who could eat burgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?"

"Yeah, well, like I said. I've moved on." He didn't want to tell St. John that he'd almost completely given up eating meat because for years after returning from Viet Nam he couldn't stand the smell of anything roasting. It had been a long time before he'd even been able to show up at a barbecue.

"Speaking of lunch," said Dom, heaving himself to his feet, "I'm gonna go see if the cafeteria's still open. You want anything, St. John?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks, Dom."

The older man left. St. John sprawled back in his chair, content to just sit there without talking. He and Hawke both looked off into the blue sky outside the window.

He'd already spent what seemed like hours talking. To the doctors, the shrinks, people from the Army and the VA. He'd blinked groggily at all of the administrative types and said as little as possible, and they'd eventually left, promising to come back again in a few days when he was feeling better. It seemed like the person he'd spoken to the least was actually his own brother, and not just because String was so full of painkillers that up till today he'd only been able to stay awake for a few minutes at a time. It just seemed that there was so much they both needed to talk about that they couldn't figure out where to begin.

He'd given both String and Dom a bare-bones outline of what had happened to him ever since String had been forced to leave him and Mace Taggart behind in the jungle. He hadn't been able to remember a lot of it. He didn't really want to remember any of it. The two had offered silent concern, but hadn't pressed him for details. If he wanted to talk, he knew they would both be there to listen. Right now that was all he wanted.

String had mentioned some crazy story of him having a kid. Le Van. Le Van Hawke, now, apparently. St. John would have thought String had gone more squirrelly than he had himself if Dom hadn't backed him up. Finally, racking his brains, he'd been able to figure out what had probably happened.

He and Mace had been captured by the Viet Cong, not long after his last sight of String. He'd never seen Mace again. Some time after that – maybe it had been a couple of years, he had no idea – he and a handful of south Vietnamese had broken out of the prison camp where they were being held. One of the men had a sister or cousin or something in a town not far from Saigon. Her name was Suong or something like that. She was pregnant, the father some passing American who'd missed his plane home, and her family hoped that if another American would marry her, they might all be able to get out of Viet Nam and into the States. He gave Suong his ring and there'd been some kind of ceremony that he couldn't understand, so he supposed that technically, Suong was his wife. But the family hadn't made it out of Viet Nam, and St. John had been recaptured. He had no idea what ever happened to her or her child. Now, it seemed, the kid had wound up here. Small world.

Abruptly Hawke said, "You should go see Le tomorrow."

Oh, crap.

St. John had nothing against this Le kid. If he'd managed to make his way here and settle in to a normal life, great. But he wasn't St. John's child, and he wanted to get his feet back under himself first – and make sure that String was okay – before taking on any ready-made responsibilities. And he wasn't sure how Le would feel about him, either. String didn't seem to be thinking of any of this.

"Why?" he said, a bit tiredly. "Just to say sorry, kid, I'm not your dad either, but maybe I'll do till something better comes along?"

"No, you're gonna tell that kid you're his real dad. Or I'll kick your butt from here to Saigon."

Looking at his brother lying in bed, St. John nearly laughed. Then it occurred to him to wonder if String was pushing this family reunion thing because he didn't want the responsibility anymore. "Why does he mean so much to you?" he asked.

"He's a real good kid. He's been through a lot. He deserves a decent life with some stability."

"String, there are millions of good kids in this world who deserve a decent, stable life. This Le sounds luckier than most."

"So you're not gonna at least talk to him?"

St. John took a deep breath. That triggered a spasm of coughing. That still hurt, and it effectively got String's mind off Le for the time being.

"Look, String, let's just leave it for now, okay?" he said when he could finally speak again. "I'll talk to this kid – Le – I promise. Maybe not tomorrow, but I'll do it. You look like you're fading on me."

A nurse came in with several vials in one hand and a blood pressure cuff in the other. St. John heaved himself out of the chair. "You rest, little brother. Don't worry about anything."

"Sinj, wait…"

"Okay, okay." St. John waited while the nurse took his brother's vitals, changed the IV solutions, and replaced the drugs in the infusion pump. By that time String was sound asleep again, as St. John had known he would be.

He made his way slowly out into the hall and found Dominic returning, two coffee cups in his hands. He steered the older man towards a couple of chairs set in an alcove by a window. "I can't understand why this boy's so important to String," he said without preamble. "I've never even laid eyes on him. He's _not my kid!_"

"Take it easy," said Dominic gently. "This doesn't all have to get sorted out right now, you know."

"Tell that to String," groaned St. John. "That kid never stops pushing for what he wants. Stubborn little…"

"Hey, you don't have to tell _me_." St. John should be glad of it; that stubborness of his brother's was the only reason he was here right now. At some point he'd have to find out what String had gone through to get him back, but that discussion was better reserved for behind closed – preferably locked – doors. "If you think about it, St. John, you'll know the answer."

"Huh?"

"String thought Le was your flesh and blood. After sixteen years, even he had pretty much given up hoping you'd be found. He thought that Le was the closest he was ever going to come to getting you back. He thought that looking after him was the only thing left that he could do for you."

He handed St. John one of the cups of coffee. "But don't tell him I said so," he added. "He'll just say I'm bein' soppy. And he probably doesn't want to admit that he almost gave up on you."

"I wouldn't've blamed him if he had. Anyone else would have given up years ago. 'Course, nobody else has a brother crazy as mine."

They both sipped and stared out the window.

Finally Dom said musingly, "So nothing in that half-baked story of you being part of some secret special ops group was true."

"I already told both of you, I have no idea where that came from. I've just been a plain old prisoner of war."

"Well, thank God for that," sighed Dominic.

St. John, stunned, nearly dropped his coffee. "_What?_"

The other man was clearly horrified by what he'd just said. "Oh, hell, St. John, I didn't mean it like that! I just meant that…well, we'd heard these rumors. I didn't think they could be true. But if they were, then that meant you must have been able to contact us somehow, in all that time, and you didn't, and that would have broken String's heart. And the St. John that I saw last wouldn't ever have wanted to hurt anybody like that, let alone his own brother. See what I mean? I'm not explaining it too good."

"I know what you mean, Dom." St. John returned to staring out the window, expression hard. "I'd like to find whoever it was that started those rumors."

One of them was in jail and the other one was dead, but Dominic didn't feel like getting into that right now. Instead he said, "You look pretty tired. Don't you think it's time for a rest?"

"Yeah, you're probably right. String's not gonna wake up anytime soon. Guess I might as well head back to bed." As Dom helped him to rise, he added, "And figure out how I'm going to apologize to him."

"You don't have to do that," said Dom comfortingly. "You've been through hell, and you need some time to get yourself straight again. You and String can't just pick up where you left off sixteen years ago, and String knows it. Or he would, if he could think straight right now with all that stuff he's on."

"He never _could_ think straight, about anything he really wanted," said St. John darkly, as they began to make their way slowly down the hall. "Guess that much hasn't changed."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

He got up again in the evening, feeling both tired and restless at the same time. He went to check on String and found his brother still sleeping, with a bunch of medical types having some sort of conference around his bed. After some hesitation, he decided to try to find the coffee shop. First step toward venturing out into the wide world, he told himself ironically.

He paid for a small cup of coffee and slumped into the closest chair. This close to the end of visiting hours, the place was almost empty. There was one elderly couple and a man sitting by himself reading a newspaper.

After a few minutes, it struck St. John that the man with the paper kept staring at him. St. John stared back, wondering what the guy's problem was. Okay, so he didn't look the greatest, but this place was a hospital. There were plenty of people here who looked worse off than him.

He was surprised when the man got up and came over to his table. He was medium height, with wavy blond hair and a cheerful, open face. "St. John Hawke?" he asked, sticking out a hand.

Warily, St. John shook it.

The man pulled up a chair and plopped into it, smiling easily. "Mike Rivers."

"Sorry, should I know you?"

"No, no. But I work for some people who have been very concerned about your welfare for a long time. I know you just came back from Burma after being a POW for over sixteen years. Very, very glad to see you back. You look pretty good, considering. How do you feel?"

"Okay. Considering."

Rivers laughed. "Well, I'll make this short, because I'm sure you want to get back to your brother. Has anyone mentioned to you an agency called the Firm?"

"I think so." St. John had slept most of the way back from Burma, but he did remember that Dominic and the other guy, Archangel – which sounded like a code name from a James Bond movie – had referred to it once or twice. Archangel seemed to work for them. St. John had an idea that if anyone was going to tell him about the Firm, it should probably be Dom.

"Did you know the Firm is the legal owner of – um – the aircraft that brought you back from Burma?"

"You mean Airwolf?"

"Not so loud! That aircraft is a highly advanced piece of technology. It's supposed to be top secret."

St. John looked around. The man and woman had already left. The girl at the cash register, filing her nails, didn't look like she'd care about any top secret technology if it fell in her lap. "So?"

"So, Captain Hawke, there's a long story about it. I don't know if anyone has told you, but your brother gained unlawful control over it nearly three years ago. Basically, he kidnapped it and held it for ransom. What he wanted was for the Firm to find out where you were. To bring you home, if possible, or at least your remains. Pretty ballsy, I have to admit. Kinda crazy, but I have to say I admire him for it. Don't tell anybody I said so, though. It didn't make the Firm very happy with him."

St. John said nothing. Nobody had mentioned Airwolf after he'd gotten back home, and he hadn't given the helicopter a second thought. He'd had other things on his mind. If what Rivers was saying was true, his brother was even crazier than he'd always thought. To _steal_ something like that from some big organization, in exchange for finding out the impossible?

He and String really needed to have another little chat.

He was puzzled, though. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because the deal was supposed to be that if we were able to find out what had happened to you, then he would give Airwolf back. And that hasn't happened. The Firm's very anxious to get its property back as soon as possible. Your brother made a promise to us, but right now he can't speak for himself. And we can't afford to wait much longer.

"Look, I know you only just got back from a hellhole, and you want time to get caught up on things, make some plans. Your brother, if he ever gets out of here – sorry to be blunt, but there it is – is going to need a lot of looking after. But the Firm can help you with all that. If you can arrange to have our property returned to us, we'd be very glad to provide you with enough money to help you get established now that you're home. Buy a decent house, a new car, maybe even a plane or chopper of your own…"

St. John blinked. "Just how grateful are these people planning to be?"

"A million dollars."

St. John blinked again. Maybe the drugs he was on were affecting his hearing.

Rivers started to get up. "Of course I don't expect an answer right this minute. You think about it. I'll be around. Just keep in mind, though, like they say in the ads, this is a limited-time offer."

He grinned cheerfully, and left.

"Little brother," said St. John to himself, "just what have you been getting yourself into?"

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

As soon as he had woken up enough the next morning to think clearly – the doctors had put him on heavy-duty sleeping medication to prevent the nightmares – he headed down to have a chat with String about a certain top-secret piece of technology.

Instead he encountered Dominic waiting by the nursing station. The older man shook his head at him. "All the docs are in there again. They said they'd let me know when I can go in."

"What's going on?"

"Just rounds, I guess. How are you feeling today? Want some breakfast?"

"I already had something. Dom, I need to talk to you. Let's go someplace."

"How 'bout the coffee shop?"

"Not there." Dom looked at him in surprise, but led the way outside to a bench near the front door. St. John took a quick look around. No newspaper-reading blond men in sight. "What's on your mind?"

"I need you to tell me about Airwolf."

"Huh?"

"I had kind of a weird conversation last night with somebody who said he was working for the Firm. Those are the people that that Archangel guy works for, aren't they?"

"Yeah," said Dom guardedly.

"He said they want Airwolf back. He said String _stole_ it from them, in exchange for them trying to find me. Is that true?"

"Well – kind of."

"What the hell's he gotten himself into? And you're in it too, aren't you? And that girl Caitlin?"

"I was going to leave it to String to tell you. But it sounds like you need to know now, if the Firm's already sniffing around." Dominic sighed and pushed his red satin ball cap further back on his head, trying to think of the best way to explain the whole Airwolf situation. Finally he gave St. John as brief a summary as possible of Hawke's activities since Moffett's flight to Libya with his purloined creation, up to the crash that had put String in hospital and the trip to Burma to rescue St. John.

When he had finished St. John leaned back on the bench and stared into the distance. "That's – pretty unbelievable," was all he could think of to say, finally.

"Yeah, I know. I don't think I'd believe it myself if I wasn't part of it."

"And you think someone has just actually tried to kill my brother? That's why he crashed?"

"We don't know for sure. But everyone who knows String, knows he's way too good a pilot to go down because of a little bit of bad weather. Not unless he was actually hit by lightning, which he wasn't."

St. John chewed on that for a moment, his face darkening in anger. But he was still perplexed.

"But Dom, I don't get it. This Airwolf – it's just a chopper. It looked pretty fancy, and I guess helicopter design's moved on a bit while I've been gone, but I don't see – "

"It's not _just_ a chopper, Sinj," said Dom gravely. "A lot of people have been willing to do just about anything, including killing, to get control of it. We don't know yet why my chopper went down with String, but it could have something to do with it. This guy you talked to yesterday – he give you a name?"

"Mike Rivers, he said. What's wrong? You know him?"

"Not personally," Dominic answered shortly. "You watch out for him, Sinj. I sure as hell don't like the idea of him hanging around here. If my chopper really was sabotaged, he probably had something to do with it. We need to talk to Archangel about this. God, I just hope he hasn't gone back to Manila."

"You talk to Archangel. I need to talk to String."

"I'll see you later, then. Oh, and St. John – "

"Yeah?"

"If anyone asks you, just don't say anything about Airwolf or Archangel, okay?"

"Don't worry, Dom. I'll just say I came home in a flying saucer. Seems just about as likely as an Airwolf."

''''''''''''''''''''''''

When he got back to his brother's room the doctors had gone. String was awake, but looked weaker and more washed out than he had yesterday. St. John wondered uneasily what that conference the day before had been about.

He smiled at St. John when he came in and pulled a chair up to the bedside. "How're you feeling?"

"Pretty good. You?"

"Okay." He looked down at the blanket. "Now they're talking about maybe having to do some exploratory surgery. They think there might be some bleeding inside still."

St. John leaned over and grasped his hand. "It'll be okay, little brother."

String stared straight at him. "Remember what you promised."

"I remember."

St. John had wanted to talk about Airwolf, but suddenly a helicopter, no matter how advanced and top secret, didn't seem that important. Besides, String still seemed to have something on his mind.

"Sinj, I need to know something." Then he seemed to get stuck.

"Sure, little brother. What is it?"

String seemed to be trying to gather his nerve for something, or searching for the right words for whatever it was he wanted to say. "What's on your mind?" said St. John encouragingly.

"Why'd you leave that letter?"

"What letter?"

"The one in your footlocker. The one saying you were joining some special ops unit."

For the life of him St. John couldn't remember any such letter. "Are you sure I wrote it?"

"It was in your handwriting. Addressed to me. In your footlocker. Sounded pretty much like a suicide note."

A suicide mission. Now it started to come back. "String, that was a long time ago."

"So? Did you really write it or not?"

"Yeah, I did," St. John said reluctantly. "At least, I wrote _something_. I don't remember what, exactly. I'd been approached about working with some special forces unit. I guess some of the stunts that you and I and Mace pulled got somebody's attention. I was supposed to transfer out, but then I went on one more mission with the Cav, supposed to be the last. Well, it _was_ the last. The way everything got so crazy that around then, I thought I might not be seeing you again before I left, and I wanted to make sure I'd explained everything."

"Why? I mean, why'd you want to go and do something like that?"

"Because I'd already been over in 'Nam for two, nearly three years. I'd seen a lot more than you had at that point, String. And it seemed to me that the only way this was ever going to end was by doing the kind of stuff this unit was going to do. More effective than just blowing up half the jungle, even if it _was_ suicidal. Okay, in hindsight maybe it was a stupid idea. But it was what I believed at the time. And I told you in the letter, I think, that I'd been assigned, not that I'd volunteered, because I didn't want you to get the idea that I'd _wanted_ to leave you behind and deliberately go out and do something that was likely to get me killed pretty damn fast. And I especially didn't want you to get any dumb ideas like trying to come with me."

"Oh, come on. We weren't _that_ joined at the hip, that I couldn't decide for myself about something like that."

"The hell we weren't!"

"Then why didn't you put that letter in _my_ footlocker? Instead of leaving it in your own stuff, where I didn't find it till just a few months ago?"

"I would have done, before I left. I hadn't had a chance. It doesn't matter now, anyway."

Silence fell. St. John took a sip of the black coffee he'd brought in with him. Oh heavenly brew. Showed how his tastebuds had deteriorated, that he could think institutional coffee tasted so great. "In a way, y'know, it was a good thing I got captured when I did. Anything I was involved in a week later, that could have made it a lot worse. One more GI wandering around in the jungle, cut off from his unit, was no big deal. But someone caught in the middle of a covert ops mission…"

"But you were an officer."

St. John drank more coffee. "Yeah, well, there was that." Naturally an Army captain had been of more interest to the VC than the average grunt.

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing I want to talk about right now," he said, more harshly than he'd intended.

"Sorry," muttered String.

St. John waved one hand. "Never mind. It's okay."

Another silence, then String asked quietly, "Did Vidor know about your transfer?"

St. John looked at him curiously. "Yeah, he knew. Why? Did he mention it to you afterward?"

"Sort of. What about Mace Taggart? Did you tell him?"

"Yeah, I told him. When we were wandering around in the jungle trying to hide from the Cong." Oh shit. Hurriedly trying to deflect what he knew was coming next, he said, "You ever hear what happened to Mace? Did he make it?"

"No," said String shortly. He was looking down at his hands, playing with one of the IV lines. St. John cursed himself. Why the hell was it that every conversation with his brother was suddenly like walking through a minefield?

"String – "

"It was my fault. You know it was my fault. I should have been able to pick you up."

"String, stop it! There was nothing you could have done. You think I hung on all these years just because I blamed you and hated you? I outranked you, remember? I told you to go. Hell, I think I _ordered_ you to go. If you'd stuck around and lost any of those other guys that were depending on you to get them out of there, they'd probably have court martialled you. Even if they had to do it posthumously."

"I wouldn't have cared."

"Yeah, well, _I_ might have. I'm not gonna lie to you, String. Did I wish like hell practically every minute of every day for the last sixteen years that you'd been able to save me? You bet I did. Did I wish that a few of those other guys hadn't managed to make it to the ropes, so I could have gotten out instead? Yeah, I'm ashamed to say I did. Was there anything _at all_ you could have done differently? No, not one single solitary goddamn thing. And I'll bet you came back again and kept looking as long as you could, didn't you? Uh huh, thought so. And I'll bet that's what Dom's been telling you all these years, and you wouldn't listen, because he wasn't there, he wouldn't know. Yeah, well, he knows _you_, and he knows you just can't say 'I did everything I could and there was nothing more I could have done'. So _I'm_ gonna say it for you, and if you don't believe _me_, I'll have to get out of this chair and knock it into your thick skull."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

In spite of his very real anger, St. John was pleased to see that his brother seemed to have regained some of his normal belligerence.

Silence fell. The brothers glared at each other.

Finally String gave in and said tiredly, "Are you done?"

"I'm done if you're done."

"I'm done."

"Yeah, for now, anyway." St. John leaned forward and tousled his brother's hair, an affectionate gesture he hadn't used since String had practically been a baby. String grinned and tried to duck away. The argument had clearly worn him out.

St. John still wanted to talk about Airwolf. But it was going to have to wait.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Six**_

Archangel hadn't gone back to Manila. At the moment he was still in his airport hotel room, looking soberly at several stapled pieces of paper.

Faye came in quietly and frowned at the expression on his face. "Has the Firm found out that you're not at your desk?"

"Hmm? Oh, not yet, I hope. In any case Marlene and the others are doing my job just as efficiently as I could, if not more so."

"Were you aware that several reporters came to see Captain Hawke two days ago?"

Michael looked startled. "Dear God. What did he tell them?"

"He refused to see them."

"Smart man." If details of St. John's rescue were made public… "If I were Locke I'd be asking the hospital administrator to review patient confidentiality with the staff. What's the man thinking, anyway? Even if he has no official involvement with the Airwolf project, he must know that Zeus will fry him in his own fat if St. John happens to mention anything about being rescued by people in a big black helicopter."

"It seems that Captain Hawke is quite capable of understanding the need for discretion in this case. Either that or he simply has no interest in speaking to the media."

"We'd better make sure he doesn't, even if Locke's not on the ball here. I'll talk to Dominic."

"I took the liberty of doing that already. There are also various officials who naturally would like to meet with Captain Hawke. I understand that so far, he hasn't been well enough to give them any details of his rescue."

"Nice to know that being close-mouthed apparently runs in families." He waved the papers he'd been reading at her."Preliminary crash report."

"And?"

"'Loose pressure compressor line from the power turbine governor to the fuel control unit. The B nut was found loose to the point of no thread engagement'," he quoted. "In a nutshell, Hawke's chopper had a screw loose."

Faye raised an eyebrow. "And do they know why?"

"They're _implying_ it was because of faulty maintenance. Someone failed to 'properly install, align, and tighten fittings and tubes'." He tossed the papers on the desk. "Monthly maintenance had been done on that chopper three days before the crash. By Hawke himself. Personally, I find it much easier to believe that someone sabotaged the machine than that Hawke or anyone else at Santini Air slipped up on the maintenance."

"Unlikely, but just possible. Anyone can make a mistake," Faye pointed out. "But the timing is extremely suspicious. And speaking of suspicious, I have seen Major Rivers at the hospital."

Michael's head shot up.

"Nowhere near the ICU," Faye reassured him. "But still, I think we need to be extra vigilant. We are also going to need more people for this. Mr. Santini and Miss O'Shannessy have a business to run, and we can hardly expect St. John Hawke to keep an eye on his brother around the clock. Is there anywhere we could move them to? Somewhere that we would have more control over the situation?"

"And still be able to provide the level of care Hawke needs? I'd have to – " He was interrupted by a tap at the door. Faye looked through the peephole, then opened the door to admit Dominic Santini.

"Morning, Dom," sighed Archangel. "Speak of the devil."

"Did you know this Mike Rivers is hanging around the hospital?" demanded Dom without preamble.

Archangel nodded in Faye's direction. "So I've just been informed. Did you know that the crash of your chopper was due to faulty maintenance?"

"Like hell!" exploded Dom.

"Please keep your voice down, sir," said Faye.

Archangel grinned wryly and held out the report. "Read it and weep."

The other man grabbed the proffered papers and scanned through them. His face grew redder and redder, but he managed to contain himself. Handing the report back to Archangel, he said briefly, "Miramar. That's where it happened."

"Excuse me?"

"String was coming back from flying a couple of guys down there. If someone had gotten at that chopper in Van Nuys, that nut wouldn't have lasted all the way to San Diego and back. Whoever's behind this was able to get at someone on that base to do the work. Michael, you said before you thought Locke was involved in this. Can't you go to Zeus and have him check out Locke? Do something to get him stopped? Find out if either Locke or Rivers was seen at Miramar that day – that would practically prove they tried to kill String."

Archangel sighed and ran a hand through already tousled hair. "Dom, I wish it was that simple. You know perfectly well I'm not exactly flavor of the month with Zeus and the Committee. Haven't been for years. If I were, I wouldn't have been shipped off to Manila. I got too complacent, thinking I was pretty much untouchable, and I suspect Locke finally outmaneuvered me there; the man's wanted my job for a long time.

"You seem to think I just have to pick up the phone and talk to Zeus and everything will magically be all right. I can assure you, Dominic, if I did that, the very opposite would probably happen. I'd probably find myself out in the street on my ass – to put it crudely. . ." For Archangel, who rarely used any kind of coarse language, that was indeed pretty crude. ". . . and my ability to do anything at all about this situation would be severely hampered. No, there will be no appeals to a higher authority until we have absolute proof either that Locke was responsible for Hawke's accident, or that he's planning to gain possession of Airwolf for his own purposes." He paused. "Unless, of course, you'd like to offer up a few prayers to the patron saint of stolen helicopters, or anyone else up there who might be interested."

"Then go down to Miramar and ask around! Or I will. Isn't that the easiest place to start?"

"It is, but none of us can just walk into a naval base like that and start asking questions about sabotage. Dominic, you _know_ I feel just as strongly about what happened to Hawke as you do, and I will do my damnedest to find answers to all those questions. But it will take some time. It won't be easy keeping under Locke's radar."

Dominic chewed on that for a moment, then said, "Well, can you at least find someplace safe for String? 'Cause if I catch that Rivers anywhere within a mile of either String or St. John… You know he actually talked to St. John last night? Offered him a million bucks to turn Airwolf over to him."

"Then St. John was getting a good deal. That's what I offered Hawke to recover Airwolf from Moffett in the first place, and he had to go all the way to Libya to earn it."

"Maybe," said Faye, "St. John should take him up on his offer."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The small chapel at the VA hospital was furnished simply, with comfortable chairs and a restful color scheme, and also functioned as a non-denominational quiet room. Mike Rivers watched St. John Hawke go in that evening, and five minutes later slipped in after him. He found St. John sitting in a chair at the back, staring at the room's plain wooden cross with a stony expression on his face.

"Sorry if this isn't a good time," he said solemnly. "I just wondered if you'd had a chance to think about my offer."

"The doctors said there're complications," said St. John harshly. "Some infection they can't control. He's bleeding inside and they need to do surgery to find what's wrong, but he's too weak for it. He wants me to take him home to die, and I promised him I'd do that. So no, this isn't a good time."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. Um – has he said anything about Airwolf? Like where she might be? This is a matter of national security…"

St. John stood up. "I don't give a damn about Airwolf or national security. Right now, all I care about is my brother."

"Oh, absolutely! And I won't keep you – but if you change your mind, when things settle down, if you think you could still use the money, give me a call." He pressed a business card into St. John's hand. St. John looked from the piece of paper to the other man with equal dislike. Rivers gave him a sympathetic smile, said goodnight and quickly left.

A few minutes later St. John left as well, and made his way to his brother's room. Shortly after that an ambulance drove away from the hospital, followed closely by the brightly painted Santini Air jeep. Like a miniature funeral cortege, the two vehicles pulled onto the nearby San Diego Freeway, heading north towards the Van Nuys airport.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Just after three in the morning, the phone rang in Archangel's hotel room.

"Good morning, sir," said Marella's voice in his ear. "Our little bird has arrived safely in the nest."

Archangel winced. "Don't ever let him hear you calling him that."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"He survived the trip alright, did he?"

"Barely. Sir…"

"I know, Marella," Archangel sighed. "This is a really, really bad idea."

"Sir, moving a man in Hawke's condition... he should be in intensive care, not a convalescent clinic like this. And the security here isn't exactly watertight."

"I realize all that. But the alternative was even more dangerous. At least where he is now, it's small enough that you and Caitlin between you can keep an eye on everyone. At the VA hospital it would have just been too easy for someone to get to either him or St. John. My resources are a bit limited at the moment, to say the least, and this is the best I could come up with. Believe me, Marella, if anything goes wrong at this place, I'll know it won't be because you didn't try your damnedest to protect him."

"Thank you, sir."

"And how many times have I told you to stop sirring me?" he said in mock irritation.

He could hear the smile in her voice. "Sorry, sir. What are you going to do now?"

"Try to figure out a way to neutralize the dastardly Jason Locke. Draw him out somehow."

"That shouldn't be hard. You still have Airwolf."

"Yeah. It's what happens after we've drawn him out that has me worried. My first step is to sleep on it and see if my subconscious brain can come up with anything."

"Then I'll go take another look at my patient. Tell your subconscious I wish it good luck. Night, sir."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Mike Rivers switched off the soft-core porn movie he'd been watching and grabbed the phone on the second ring. "Hello," he said cheerfully.

"Your offer still good?" said the brusque voice on the other end of the line, without preamble.

"For you, sure," said Rivers without batting an eye.

"I don't like doing this. Feels like I'm betraying String."

"You're doing the right thing," said Rivers, feeling his way carefully. He needed to avoid mentioning the actual cash, in case St. John was worried about appearing mercenary. On the other hand, appealing to his sense of patriotism was probably a bad idea too, given that his country had more or less left him to rot in hell for sixteen years. "With you back, your brother has no more use for it." Especially if he'd already snuffed it. "And it's far too important a piece of equipment to let sit and gather dust."

"I want to know who's involved in this. I want to make sure it's not just you that has a use for it."

So the man's brains weren't completely addled. Rivers thought a moment, then said, "Tell you what, why don't I meet you at Knightsbridge. That's the Firm's headquarters for the western region. It's in the Thousand Oaks area, you know where that is? Okay, terrific. You be there tomorrow morning at ten, and I'll see you meet the people involved. Will that set your mind at rest?"

A short, considering pause, then, "Fine. Tomorrow at ten." The line went dead.

Rivers hung up the phone, smiling. Then he picked it up again and called Jason Locke.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Locke worked late that evening. The last thing he did before leaving at nearly eleven was to call a number at the Firm's office in Manila. The imperturbable voice of one of Archangel's assistants (Marlene? Samantha? Carol? They all sounded the same to Locke) answered. He asked for Michael.

"I'm not sure if Archangel is available at the moment, sir. One moment and I'll check."

The moment seemed was a very long one, but eventually they were connected.

"Michael, this is Jason Locke."

"Yes, Jason?"

Archangel sounded rather glacial. Locke supposed that wasn't too surprising.

"I know it's late – "

"Late? It's the middle of the afternoon here."

"Oh, sorry. Well, it's late here, and I guess I was forgetting what the time difference is," lied Locke. "Hey, I just wanted to say what a great job you did wrapping up that Nim Phuong case last week. We'd been after him for years."

"Most of the work was done before I got here. But thank you."

"How do you like Manila?"

"Interesting place."

"Look, Michael, I just want you to know that I wasn't trying to push you out, or anything. It was the Committee's decision. You did a way better job here than I ever could."

"Thank you for that vote of support." Archangel's voice hadn't warmed up any. Locke, who had in fact done everything in his power to get the man out of the country short of directly lobbying Zeus, knew that Michael Coldsmith Briggs was far too astute to take any of Locke's protestations at face value. Not that that mattered any.

They hung up after making polite goodbyes. Locke sat back and regarded the LED display on the small box attached to his phone.

His call had gone to the Philippines. But then it had been re-routed back to the States.

"Archangel, my friend," he murmured. "I should have known you weren't going to give up so easily."

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Mike Rivers met St. John in the lobby. the ex-POW arrived nearly an hour late, looking pale and a bit shaky.

"Sorry," he said. "There was something I had to do."

"Your brother?" murmured Rivers.

St. John nodded. Finally, thought Rivers exultantly. Took that little bastard long enough to croak.

He made sympathetic noises as he ushered the elder Hawke upstairs and into a small conference room. Jason Locke was at the head of the table; three other men in business suits sat around it. Rivers politely pulled out the last chair at the table for St. John and took a seat for himself in one corner.

Locke introduced himself and the others. "I can understand your being cautious, Captain Hawke. Very wise of you, especially where Airwolf is concerned. Your brother – is he…"

"Let's not talk about my brother," said St. John briefly.

"Whatever you like. I assume, since you're here, that you're ready and willing to restore the Firm's property to its rightful owners."

"Not exactly _willing_. Like I said to Rivers, it feels like I'm betraying my brother, handing it back under these circumstances. It meant a lot to him."

"And as I'm sure Mr. Rivers told you, you're doing the right thing," said Locke reassuringly. "We at the Firm realize this is a very hard time for you. We plan on doing everything we can to make the transition back to everyday life as smooth as possible for you."

"A million dollars would help a lot. I can't deny it."

Locke asked cautiously, "What about Mr. Santini? Does he feel the same way about your decision?" He doubted whether a grieving Dominic would care about Airwolf, but the older man might just decide to dig in his heels and cause trouble purely for sentimental reasons.

"Dom's got a business and a life. He doesn't really need the money. Not like I do." Locke caught the implication – that Dominic didn't know what St. John was about to do.

Locke leaned forward. "In that case, I suggest that we make things easier for everyone by not prolonging this. Where is Airwolf, Captain Hawke?"

"Where's the money?" countered St. John.

"I wasn't sure what form of transaction you'd prefer. I can have a certified cheque written, if your bank account is straightened out. Or we can do it this way." He nodded at the man on his left, who opened the leather briefcase sitting on the table in front of him to reveal a multitude of neatly bundled bills. St. John's eyes widened at the sight. For a moment, his gaze was completely fixed on it.

"Airwolf, Captain Hawke," Locke prodded gently.

St. John finally managed to tear his gaze away from the cash. "I don't know what it's called. Some old airbase out in the desert east of here."

Locke's secretary came in and murmured something in his ear. He stood up. "Sorry, Captain. Important phone call. Would you excuse me for just one minute?"

He was back in less than that. "Now, Captain, I'd be very grateful if you'd escort us out to the site. That way there won't be any misunderstandings."

St. John said uncomfortably, "I've told you where it is. There's nothing more I can do for you."

"I insist. We'll bring the money with us, if you'd like." He closed the briefcase and courteously handed it to St. John. "Now, if you could just show us where we're headed, we'll get going. The sooner we have Airwolf, the sooner you can start on your new life."

Rivers spread out several sectional charts of California on the table. St. John studied them for a few minutes, then tapped his finger on one point. "This is it."

Rivers looked over his shoulder. "There's no airbase marked there."

"Oh, my God," groaned Locke. The other men looked at him curiously.

"Red Star," said Locke. "I should have known."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Seven**_

Mike Rivers flew them in one of the Firm's Long Rangers, its white paint a holdover from Archangel's time. Jason Locke sat with his back to the pilot. Facing him, sandwiched between two Firm security staff whose imperfectly tailored suits didn't quite disguise the guns in their shoulder holsters, was St. John, clutching the briefcase of cash like a life preserver. He looked like a terrified white-knuckle flier, not a decorated war vet and skilled pilot. Locke wondered how on earth this man had managed to survive all those years in prison camps. He'd have given a good chunk of the money in that briefcase to know what had really happened to Ray Bouchard.

The rock formation known as Devil's Anvil came into sight, clawing up out of the surrounding range of low mountains. Locke had never seen the site of the infamous events when Dr. Charles Henry Moffett had blown the Firm's top secret advanced testing site to kingdom come, killing several dozen people in the process, and hightailed it out of the country in the Firm's top secret advanced prototype aircraft. He looked out curiously as the Long Ranger cleared the rocks and he got his first view of what was left of Red Star.

Much of the site was still intact, although the main hangar and support buildings had obviously been abandoned ever since the catastrophe; the Firm had never attempted to rebuild. Moffett had concentrated his firepower on the main control tower. Even now jagged chunks of reinforced concrete lay scattered in the dusty valley like a battered set of children's building blocks. Locke suddenly remembered hearing that they'd never found all the bodies. In spite of himself he felt a small shiver.

Of course, that might have been because, as Rivers circled the site looking for a clear spot to set down, he also got his first real view of the machine that had caused all the destruction. The gleaming black and white helicopter was nestled between rock and concrete. It looked flashy and nasty and somehow bigger than Locke had expected.

"Mean-looking little bugger, isn't she?" said Rivers conversationally as the Long Ranger lowered the last few feet to the ground and the skids crunched on rock. Even with that prosaic assessment, Locke could see that he had far more of his attention on Airwolf than on the machine he was flying. "You really think we're expected? I'm not seeing a red carpet."

"I'm damn sure we are." Even if Archangel wasn't personally hiding under a rock somewhere around here, Locke knew that if the former deputy director had had any say in the matter, there was no way the sleek black and white helicopter would have been left just sitting in the open without some form of remote defense. In other words, booby-trapped.

He took a deep breath, opened the door, grabbed St. John, still clinging to the briefcase, by the arm and pulled him out.

In the shelter of the rock walls, the sun was startlingly strong, striking diamonds from the rock. Aside from the rotors of the Long Ranger spinning down, the only sound was the constant keening of the wind. Grit crunched under Locke's shoes as he took another step toward Airwolf, tugging St. John with him. "Anybody here, come out where I can see you!" he yelled. "Or Hawke's brother is gonna die!"

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Twenty yards away, in the cover of a jumble of concrete, Dominic Santini also took a deep breath.

He and Archangel had been listening to St. John's meeting at the Firm via the tiny transceiver that Archangel had produced and insisted that St. John wear. When Locke had announced that he wanted to be taken to Airwolf right then and there, the two men had scrambled to make the fifty-mile trip to Archangel's ranch where the helicopter was still parked. Michael had shaved ten minutes off his previous record for the drive, even while he continued to steam over Locke's proprietorial comment about "We at the Firm", which amused Dom as much as anything could at that point.

They'd primed St. John with Airwolf's supposed location – chosen mainly for its isolation – but Michael hadn't expected that Locke would be in such a hurry to claim his prize. So far as he knew, Locke would have no reason to suspect that anyone but Dominic Santini would be watching over the helicopter at this point, and even Dominic could be presumed to have other things on his mind right now. The speed with which Locke was moving to retrieve Airwolf could simply be due to impatience, but more likely it meant that he expected trouble. The fact that he was bringing St. John with him certainly showed that he was preparing against the possibility of a doublecross.

Dom generally left the mach one-plus flying to Hawke, but this time he had no choice. They beat Locke to Red Star by a bare ten minutes. Archangel immediately limped off into the wreckage to pick out a spot for an ambush. As soon as Airwolf had powered down, Dominic set out in a different direction to find his own hiding spot. It was ironic, he thought as he closed the hatch behind him, that he had all this firepower at his fingertips and couldn't use it, not as long as Locke had St. John captive, leaving a couple of men with handguns as a last-ditch defense against whatever Locke had brought with him.

Now he let out the deep breath, took another, and slowly raised his Colt pistol. Too bad he and String hadn't kept anything more heavy-duty in Airwolf. A couple of assault rifles would have come in handy right now.

Locke and Rivers advanced slowly, Locke keeping a firm grip on St. John. The other two men covered their backs with textbook precision.

Dominic straightened up six cautious inches to get a better angle. As he did so, one foot dislodged a tiny trickle of grit and gravel, which slid and bounced down the rocks with a noise that seemed disproportionately loud in the near silence. Instantly all the guns below were pointed in his direction. "Whoever you are, come out of there!" yelled Locke, pulling St. John in front of him.

Slowly Dominic emerged, hands raised. "Don't hurt him!" he called.

"Then get down here!"

"All right, all right, I'm coming." Scowling, he began to pick his way through the debris. Michael, I sure hope you can come up with a Plan B on the fly, he thought. And it better be a smarter one than Plan A.

"Who else is with you?" shouted Locke.

"Nobody!"

"Where's Archangel?"

"How the hell should I know? Last I heard, you'd managed to have him sent off to some jungle someplace."

Hidden inside a two storey tall jumble of rocks, Archangel listened to their voices and glared down the sight of his own gun, finger tightening infinitesimally on the trigger. Waiting there, he'd managed to clamp down on every nightmare memory he had of Red Star's destruction. This was just another target on the firing range. Come on, Locke. Just six feet closer…

Before Locke could oblige, the near silence of the valley was broken by the sound of another approaching helicopter. Michael glanced up and saw to his dismay a Sikorsky Black Hawk, outfitted like a gunship, come sailing over the rock rim and circle the area, obviously planning on joining the party. It settled down fifty feet from Locke's craft. A hatch opened and a man jumped out, then turned around to pick something up – no, one end of something. Another man emerged. Between them they were carrying a stretcher. Both Michael and Dominic could clearly see Stringfellow Hawke lying on it.

Oh hell, thought Michael. Guess Locke really did expect trouble. How did he find Hawke so fast? Stupid of him to put all his eggs in one basket and bring them here. Stupid, but effective.

Right behind the second man came Marella, hurrying to steady the IV pole attached to the stretcher frame. After her came Caitlin, looking around worriedly. More men piled out after her. Ten men altogether, including the pilot and stretcher bearers, all armed with handguns, most with M16's as well.

Suddenly one of them pointed at Archangel's hiding spot and yelled, "Sniper in the rocks, nine o'clock!" Immediately, Michael found himself facing all the M16's, with St. John between himself and them.

The man must have caught a glimpse of sunlight reflecting off the barrel of his gun, Michael realized. Could this day get any worse?

Don't ask, he thought. You might find out.

He tossed down his weapon, and began to carefully climb down.

"Wise move," said Locke, when he had reached the ground. "Alright, Mr. Santini, I want you to join him. I'm sure neither one of you needs to be told not to even _think_ of tryin' something."

Slowly, Dominic crossed the open ground towards Michael. At the same time, Rivers hopped down from the white Long Ranger and headed towards Airwolf, an anticipatory grin on his face, all but rubbing his hands with glee. As he passed Locke, he grabbed St. John's arm and took him in tow. St. John appeared stunned, as if everything had moved too fast for him. He stumbled after Rivers with a bewildered look on his face. Locke and the two men from the Firm began to converge on Archangel and Dominic, guns drawn. Michael might have survived Red Star once, but clearly he wasn't about to manage the same feat twice.

Suddenly the sound of a single gunshot echoed off the rocks. Mike Rivers stumbled, nearly falling, and all hell broke loose.

Locke and his men spun around, looking for the source of the shot. In complete disbelief Locke saw the younger Hawke twisting on his stretcher, holding a pistol in two hands, taking aim once again at Rivers. His yell, like the gunshot, was loud enough to echo. "St. John! _Go!_"

Someone wrested the gun away from him. Marella flung herself across the stretcher in an attempt to protect him from the chaos. Caitlin was struggling with two men. Locke turned back just in time to stop himself from being rushed by both Dominic and Archangel.

St. John pulled himself free from Rivers and ran like a bat out of hell for Airwolf, diving in amidst a hail of gunfire.

Frantically he stared around the cockpit. What the hell kind of ship was this, anyway – how were you supposed to even _start_ the thing?

Start 1. Start 2. He pushed both buttons. Above him, the rotors began to turn.

Well, that was easy. Probably the last thing that would be.

Okay, next. He needed guns. He knew Airwolf had them; the trigger was right where it should be, but where the hell were the firing controls? Desperately he hunted along the panel, while one hand groped slightly lower down. His fingers met the recessed latch of a storage compartment. He pulled it open and found a Browning Hi-Power pistol. He checked the clip. A full thirteen rounds. It was considerably lower tech than the weapons he knew Airwolf possessed, but since he couldn't find them… He opened the port hatch again, leaned out and took aim at the closest enemy.

He was rewarded by the sight of one of Locke's two men jerking and falling. He glimpsed Archangel scooping up the man's weapon from the ground, then realized Dom was making a run for Airwolf. He tried to set up covering fire, catching a glimpse of Rivers staggering back towards the other two choppers. He wished he knew how String was faring, but there was too much of a scrimmage around the stretcher to see anything. How in hell had his little brother produced a gun like that anyway, like a rabbit out of a hat? Leave it to String…

Dom had reached Airwolf, showing a far brisker turn of speed than St. John expected. He dove in through the port hatch and scrambled into the back. "Okay, Sinj, ready?"

"For what?"

"What do you think? You've got your guns, now. Put a helmet on so we can hear each other without yelling, and let's start with – oh, _no_."

While Dom had been getting aboard, Rivers had reached the Black Hawk. Caitlin had been trying desperately to get her hands on a weapon, while attempting to protect Marella, who was still shielding Hawke. Rivers slipped up behind her in the melee, grabbed her arm and virtually slung her into the Black Hawk, scrambling in behind her. The Black Hawk's rotors began to turn.

St. John could have used stronger language than "Oh, no."

Archangel had taken down the second of the Firm's security men. Locke was running like an Olympic sprinter for the Long Ranger, yelling and waving for the others to get clear. The Black Hawk's pilot jumped in and had the machine powering up by the time Locke reached it.

St. John fumbled for a helmet and dragged it on. "Dom, can you see String?"

"He's somewhere in the middle of all that dust." The Black Hawk lifted off, with the Long Ranger right behind. The dust clouds billowed. St. John's finger tightened on the trigger, then eased. The other two choppers were easy targets, but anything that got blown up would land right on the heads of String and Marella.

When everything began to settle, they could see the troops from the Black Hawk still clustered in a tight knot, hammering Airwolf as hard as they could with their rifles. Bullets ricocheted wildly from the windshield. St. John flinched.

"You see Michael anywhere?" asked Dom.

"If he's got any sense he'll still be keeping his head down." St. John cautiously pulled back on the collective, just enough that Airwolf rose a few feet in the air. He edged toward the group of men, firing a couple of bursts from the guns. He'd aimed well short of them, but the threat was obvious. With Locke gone, no means of escape and no personal stake in being shot full of holes, the enemy reconsidered. One by one, the M16's landed in the dust.

Archangel emerged from the cover of a jumble of concrete slabs and limped towards the group, scooping up an abandoned rifle as he came. They could see Marella finally straightening up, apparently uninjured, yelling something at him through cupped hands. St. John backed off a few yards, set Airwolf down with a heavy thump, jumped out and ran for his brother. He took the precaution, like Archangel, of grabbing a weapon in passing, but it looked as if this particular party was over. "String! String, you okay?"

Covered in dust, face white and pinched with pain, his younger brother still had the strength to snarl at him, "What the hell are you still doing here? You got Airwolf, don't you? Locke and Rivers are getting away, and they've got Caitlin!"

"But String, you need – "

"To hell with me! You gotta stop them!"

St. John looked desperately at Marella, who said, "He's right, you know. Just don't take too long."

St. John bent over the stretcher. "Okay, okay, I'm going. Just don't croak on me before I get back. That's an order!"

"Shove it – sir," String gasped out. He didn't quite salute, but St. John was pretty sure that if he had, it would have been a one-fingered one .

He jogged back to Airwolf, feeling his heart thumping hard in his chest. Must be the heat, he decided. No way there could possibly be any other reason. All he had to do now was keep his brother alive, stop the bad guys, and rescue the girl, without stuffing this multi-million dollar prototype in the ground, after just a few whirlwind days of being back from years of imprisonment. Piece of cake.

Well, Dominic was going to have to do the flying, and he'd sit in back. He had no idea what Dom did back there, but he felt far more qualified to be a button pusher than a pilot right at the moment. He climbed in and turned to tell Dom they were trading positions, only to find the older man with an open first aid kit on his lap, trying to wrap a bandage one-handed over a wad of bloody gauze on his right hand. St. John took a closer look at him and realized he hadn't gotten away from the rifle fire quite so unscathed as St. John had originally thought. "You okay, Dom?"

"I'm not gonna bleed to death, don't worry. But you're gonna have to fly us, 'cause this hand can't cope with a stick." At St. John's look, he added reassuringly, "Hey, it'll be like riding a bike. You don't forget."

Right or not, they had no more time to waste. Oh, what the hell. St. John pulled up on the collective and Airwolf rose into the sky.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

In less than a minute they were on the track of the two fleeing helicopters. "Locke won't be armed," said Dominic. "We don't have to worry about him. Rivers, that Black Hawk's carrying two M60 guns and Stinger missiles. Nasty, but nothing the Lady can't handle."

An alarm sounded. "Uh oh," said Dom.

"What the hell does 'uh, oh' mean?" snapped St. John. Please, dear God, not something else to worry about.

"Two bogies at three o'clock, fifty miles out, on a converging course," Dom replied briskly. "Scanning for ID." A moment later he added, "They're F-15 Eagles, loaded for bear. Probably a patrol from Edwards."

"What do we do?"

"Hit the deck. We've got IR suppression and radar damping at max. If we're lucky they won't notice us."

Considering that the "deck" was a range of jagged mountains, St. John didn't think much of that particular option. But if they were diverted by the F-15's, or attracted their fire, they might as well have stayed on the ground at Red Star. He dropped altitude, skimming as close to the mountain tops as he dared. "Where are Locke and Rivers? Why aren't those fighters going after them?"

"Locke's keeping his head down, seven miles ahead of us. Rivers must be doing the same thing, 'cause I can't – oh, there he is. He's about to run out of mountains. He won't have seen the fighters – he's gonna get a welcoming committee in about three minutes if he's not careful."

"Black and white helicopter, identify yourselves," said a voice from the radio.

"Crap," muttered St. John.

"Identify yourselves and take a heading of 047 or you will be shot down. Repeat, identify yourselves – "

St. John hit the radio button. "Captain St. John Hawke, U.S. Army, serial number 932011857." He ended the transmission. "There, they can't say we didn't respond. How fast can this thing go, Dom?"

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

It was a wild flight. Dom had to caution him that they wanted to rack up Rivers and not themselves, but St. John managed to throw off the two fighters without scraping themselves off on the side of a mountain. Now they had to deal with Locke and Rivers before Edwards sent out more planes to investigate.

Traveling at three hundred knots – over twice the speed of the Hueys St. John was used to – they nearly blasted right past the Long Ranger. The turbulence created by Airwolf was enough to send the smaller, slower aircraft reeling off course. St. John banked tightly and came swooping back. The two aircraft hovered almost nose to nose in midair.

Jason Locke abruptly found himself staring through the windshield of the Long Ranger straight at Airwolf and her unsheathed guns. From this angle she was big, black, and intimidating as hell.

Well, Locke, you always wanted that chopper, and now you've got her, he thought. You should have been more careful what you wished for.

"Can't you _do_ something?" he demanded.

"Yeah," said the pilot laconically. "I'm gonna set down before he blows us outta the sky."

"What are you talkin' about? We can't just – "

"You got a better plan, I'll be happy to hear it. Sir."

Locke shut up. Rivers, where the hell are you? he thought. You hung me out to dry, you bastard. You could have run some interference here, instead of just thinking of saving your own hide. Damn you to hell. And damn Stringfellow Hawke, who should be dead, or dying. And his brother. Why hadn't Bouchard killed _him_, back in Burma? What was it about these Hawkes that made them so damned indestructible?

With Airwolf sticking to them like a leech, making sure they didn't try to suddenly deke out and make another run for it, the pilot found a canyon just wide enough to put the Long Ranger down. Airwolf sank even closer, and Locke felt a spasm of fear that they were still going to be blown into a million flaming pieces.

Gunfire rattled around them. Chunks of tail rotor flew everywhere in a rain of shrapnel as St. John made sure Locke's chopper wasn't going to lift off again any time soon. A second burst, fired with pinpoint accuracy, shattered the radio antenna. The sound of metal bouncing off the Long Ranger's cabin was almost loud enough to drown out the howl of Airwolf's turbines as she rose again and disappeared from sight.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

"You just gonna leave 'em for the buzzards?" Dominic asked noncommitally.

St. John chuckled grimly. "Naw, I'm gonna leave 'em for Archangel. Same thing, isn't it?"

"You got that right." By the time Michael was done with Locke, there probably wouldn't be enough left of the man to interest even the hungriest vulture.

Of course, he might be having to stand in line behind Dominic Santini.

He allowed himself a few seconds' satisfaction at that thought, then got back to business. "Black Hawk five miles southeast. Take a heading of 087. Looks like he's trying to sneak down the east side of these mountains. Probably picked up a transmission from one of the fighters."

"Any sign of them?"

"Still just the two of 'em, sixty miles north of us. You just keep doin' what you're doin' and they won't bother us any."

A moment later they had the other helicopter in sight, practically skimming the mountainsides as it flew, obviously hoping to evade or confuse Airwolf's scanners. Whatever else he was, Mike Rivers was a skilful pilot.

"We got rockets on this thing?" asked St. John.

"No." Dom recited a list of Airwolf's armament, most of which was meaningless to St. John. He settled on the only weapon he'd actually dealt with before. At least he knew it would do the job. "Gimme a Bullpup."

"Just remember Cait's on board," said Dom worriedly. "You don't want to destroy the thing, just disable it a little bit."

At these speeds, over this terrain, St. John figured being just a little bit disabled was about as impossible as being just a little bit pregnant. "Don't worry, I won't hurt a hair on her head. Just get me that missile."

"Bullpup ready."

St. John chose his spot carefully, waiting until the Black Hawk had darted into a narrow canyon, fleeing between the rock walls with eel-like agility. He hit the firing button and guided the missile with exquisite caution. It passed the Black Hawk and a few seconds later hit the side of the mountain. The high-explosive warhead sent massive quantities of rock and dust into the air and tumbling down to the ground. The canyon had suddenly become a dead end.

The Black Hawk leaped upward, but Airwolf was already there. Rivers tried to double back, and again the sleeker helicopter cut him off. The Black Hawk's guns began firing, with little effect. Like he had with Locke's chopper, St. John brought Airwolf face to face with the other craft. Bullets rattled off the windshield. This time Dominic engaged full combat mode.

"Set that thing down, _now_," said St. John through gritted teeth. He knew Rivers couldn't hear him, but Airwolf's unsheathed guns and deployed ADF pod conveyed the message clearly enough.

Inside the Black Hawk, Caitlin looked from Airwolf to Rivers. The pilot's left shoulder was soaked with blood; it had run down his arm and dripped onto the hand grasping the cyclic. His pale, sweat-shiny face had lost all its good humour. She considered trying to get the controls away from him, but knew that he could still probably overpower her, and even if he couldn't the struggle would most likely result in them going right into the ground.

"How long do you think you can keep going?" she asked. "Y'know, you're losing blood faster than this thing's using up fuel. If Airwolf doesn't get us, those fighter jets will when they find us again. And you know they're gonna shoot first and ask questions later."

Rivers didn't answer. Instead, in a move that was so desperate it was all but suicidal, he squeezed the missile firing button.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

"Stinger launching!" yelled Dom.

St. John saw the puff of white smoke at the same instant that he yanked Airwolf upwards, simultaneously rolling hard to starboard, dodging the missile. It had been an instinctive reaction; at this distance there was no way he should have been able to evade the thing. Airwolf's agility and pure power amazed him.

The missile altered course, still seeking its target. "Dropping sunburst," said Dom.

Missile and flare connected in a brilliant flash of mutual destruction. At the same moment the Black Hawk shot by underneath them. St. John set off in pursuit. Conscious of the clock ticking for String back at Red Star, he pushed a bit too hard and nearly clipped the rotors on a jutting rock formation. The terrain avoidance alarm shrilled.

"Careful!" bellowed Dom. "The Lady's pretty sturdy, but even she can't take a collision with a mountainside at this speed."

He ground his teeth and throttled back. He still had speed to spare over the Black Hawk; no point in pushing too hard and turning them all into a smear of wreckage. That was probably what Rivers was counting on. His lungs suddenly spasmed with a coughing fit; it took a moment to recover both his breath and Airwolf's course. He was starting to slide from tiredness into complete exhaustion. The muscles in his arms were beginning to quiver.

_Not much longer. One way or another, not much longer._ _Keep it together. _

_This is the guy who almost killed String. Stay angry. It's the only thing keeping you flying._

The two helicopters were travelling on parallel courses now. Suddenly Rivers banked hard and lobbed another Stinger at them, which met the same fate as the first. "Oh, come on," muttered St. John. "This is getting old." Nevertheless he dropped speed again, falling back even more.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Settled on a new course that would hopefully avoid Airwolf and take him out of patrol range of the fighters, Mike Rivers felt a fraction of his normal cockiness return. St. John Hawke had no business being at the controls of any aircraft, let alone that one; he'd been away from flying for far too long, and had no familiarity with Airwolf to begin with. If his brother had been in his place – well, that would have been a different story. But it looked like the elder Hawke had finally come to his senses and realized that he was facing a better pilot and one, moreover, who had a valuable hostage, and given up the chase.

"Now what?" said Caitlin sarcastically. "We just fly around these mountains all day till we run out of fuel? Or you bleed to death?"

"On this heading we'll be just about out of range of those Eagles by the time we clear the mountains, then a quick pit stop and we can head wherever our hearts desire. How about it, Miss O'Shannessy? You ever wanted to see Russia? China? Cuba, maybe? I've heard the beaches there are fantastic…"

"You're not even gonna get out of the USA."

"Much as I hesitate to disagree with a lady, I don't see anything stopping us."

"I do," said Caitlin grimly.

Half a mile ahead of them, Airwolf came sailing into sight around one of the last tall peaks before the mountain range began to subside into high desert. Sunlight glittered off the black and white hull as she settled into a hover once again, blocking the path of the Black Hawk. Rivers stared at her with a mixture of fury, fear, and bafflement. How the hell had she gotten there? How had St. John Hawke managed to outfly him? He blinked hard, feeling a wash of sweat breaking out all over him in spite of the relatively cool cabin temperature.

"Come on, Rivers," said Caitlin in a quieter tone. "I'm getting real tired of this, and I'm guessing you are too. The only way you're gonna get out of this is to open that door and jump."

If he'd had a parachute he'd have done just that. Leave Caitlin to land the Black Hawk if she could and crash if she couldn't. But he didn't have a parachute.

"All right, Captain," he muttered. "I'm setting down."

Under Airwolf's watchful eye he found an area that was relatively level and put the Black Hawk down. Before the wheels were even in full contact with the ground Caitlin had her door open and was jumping out, avoiding the desperate grab Rivers made for her arm and sprinting for Airwolf, whose descent had almost mirrored the other helicopter's. Almost immediately Rivers let loose with his machine guns again, aiming not for his fleeing hostage but Airwolf's mast and rotors.

St. John swung around in a pedal turn to keep Airwolf's armoured bulk between Caitlin and Rivers, wincing at the noise. The cabin might be bulletproof, but he didn't know how vulnerable other parts of the helicopter were; but with Caitlin on the ground he had no choice but to hold his fire. "Come on, come on, come on," he muttered as Caitlin rushed towards them.

Dom leaned forward and helped her scramble aboard. "You okay?" he asked anxiously as she more or less fell into the co-pilot's seat, slamming the hatch behind her.

"Fine," she answered breathlessly, rummaging for a helmet.

St. John had promptly pivoted Airwolf back on her axis to face the Black Hawk again.

"F-15's are forty-five miles out and closing fast," said Dom. "Looks like they've found us."

Without replying St. John edged them forward a few yards. He looked ready to take Airwolf and her guns right down Rivers' throat.

"St. John," said Dom warningly, "we've got about ninety seconds before those fighters are gonna be right on top of us."

Still the pilot said nothing. The view of tense, braced shoulders and one finger hovering over the firing button was one Dominic was very familiar with; the quivering in those shoulders was something different. And definitely wrong. He didn't want the man at Airwolf's controls to be anything less than in total command of himself. He stretched over and gently touched St. John's arm. "Did you hear me?" he asked gently.

"Yeah. I heard." He flicked the radio button. "Rivers."

"Yeah? If you're gonna blow me to kingdom come, Captain Hawke, would you just do it and get it over with?"

"Did you rig my brother's chopper to crash?"

"What kind of an answer do you want? If I say no, you won't believe me. Why don't you ask Jason Locke? Oh, of course, you won't believe him either."

"If you touched that machine," said St. John steadily, "it'll be easy enough to find out."

"Will it?" There was a shrug in the other pilot's voice. "There's no way you can prove it."

"Just like there's no way you can prove I was here," said St. John. His finger hit the firing button, and the tail of the Black Hawk vanished in a fireball.

Dominic just had time to see Rivers tumbling out of the cockpit before the rest of the helicopter was consumed. Airwolf leaped upwards and then dove deep into the shelter of the mountain passes and canyons, leaving a fiery beacon to guide the fighter jets to where she had been.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Storm Season**_

_**Part Eight**_

Two nights later, the low-pressure system that had brought so much rain and stormy weather took one last kick at southern California. St. John stood at the window looking out at the wind-driven water lashing against the glass. The rain was falling so hard it was impossible to make out anything aside from a few blurry streetlights, with the reflection of his brother's hospital room superimposed on them.

Suddenly, he laughed.

Aware of String's quizzical gaze, he pointed into the darkness. "It's raining out there."

"I noticed."

"And it's dry in here."

"Saw that too."

"I'm not out there," St. John clarified. "I'm in here. Where it's dry. And warm. And I don't have to go out if I don't want to. You know what that means?"

"Means you're safe."

"God, I don't believe it. I still don't believe it. You think I ever will?"

"I'll _make_ you believe it, big brother." String grinned up at him from the bed. St. John went over and sat down beside him.

The room was a long way from cosy, but at least the cold overhead fluorescents had been turned off in deference to the time of day, leaving the bed in a pool of relatively soft light. A few people had sent flowers – Caitlin had arrived that morning with a colossal assortment, saying that she knew Hawke would have preferred a few sixpacks of beer and some fresh trout but that he'd have to make do with these. String had made a pretense of grumbling that he didn't like cut flowers, and she'd told him tartly that he'd better learn to like them because it was going to be a long time before he saw anything else green and growing.

She'd presented St. John with a gift basket of fruit. It also contained a couple of the biggest chocolate bars he could ever remember seeing. "It's not very much, but it was all they had in the gift shop," she said shyly.

"Hey, it's terrific. Thanks."

She seemed oddly nervous around him, like he was some kind of celebrity, which he found strange coming from a woman who could fly a supersonic helicopter and knew karate. After she'd gone he mentioned it to String, who merely snorted derisively and told him that the closest he came to being a celebrity was being on more pills than three movie stars put together. St. John had opened his mouth to point out that that was nothing compared to what Stringfellow was taking. Just then a nurse had come in with another dose of meds for the younger Hawke. She hadn't understood why the two of them seemed to think that was so funny.

In the daylight, it was easy to laugh, to think everything was fine, that he could just pick up his everyday life again with no trouble. For some reason it wasn't nearly so easy at night. The palm trees he could see outside the window of his hospital room sometimes multiplied in his mind's eye and crowded around like the jungle, and he was ashamed of how glad he was of anything that would make him sleep.

Now, striving to sound normal again, he said, "I'm getting my teeth fixed tomorrow. Maybe by the time you get out of here, I'll be able to eat all those raw veggies that you live on."

"Never said I live on raw veggies. We'll go fishing, like we used to."

"Still lots of trout in the lake, then?"

"Yup."

String had been taken straight back to the VA hospital as soon as help could reach them at Red Star and had almost immediately been whisked into surgery. The internal bleeding that had worried the doctors before his transfer to the private clinic near Oakland had been exacerbated by the violence of everything that had happened soon after. Steeped in an icy chill that had nothing to do with air conditioning and everything to do with the fear that he would soon have to carry out the promise he'd made to his brother, St. John waited to hear the outcome. He'd already done everything he could to give String the will to stay alive; if that had failed the only thing left would be to take him back to his lake and his eagles.

Dominic, his right arm in a sling, waited with him, along with Caitlin. Faye joined them as well, standing in for Michael and Marella, who were both occupied with the shakeup that was no doubt happening right that moment at the Firm. Apparently there had been a link between Locke and Colonel Bouchard. The two men between them had been responsible for the plot to draw String and Airwolf to Burma using St. John as bait. That was interesting in a remote, academic sort of way. They were all too tired and too anxious to give it much thought for the time being.

In the end, the news was good. It took nearly five hours but the doctors had found the source of the bleeding and stopped it. String had come through remarkably well, so they said. He'd woken up for a few minutes late in the afternoon, long enough for St. John to give him a concise summary of the events of the previous day. He'd managed a grin and a congratulatory handclasp with his brother, then sunk back into morphine-induced oblivion.

St. John had staggered off to his own bed then. He was so exhausted that he slept the rest of the day and most of the night. For the first time since his rescue he hadn't needed any help from drugs. He suspected Dominic and Caitlin had done the same thing.

String looked much better the following morning. At least now he seemed resigned to staying longer in the purgatory that, for him, was the hospital, without the desperation that had driven him to make that terrifying request of St. John. Which was a good thing, because it was clearly going to be a long time before he'd be doing any fishing up at the lake.

It had crossed St. John's mind to tell his brother with a straight face that since he hadn't known at the time just where it was that String had wanted to go to die, he'd been darned lucky that he hadn't wound up with the hospital parking lot or the nearest bar as his jumping-off point to the pearly gates. Then he looked at his brother's face again, and decided that joking about that subject was something else that could be left for later.

St. John didn't mind the wait. He'd already been waiting sixteen years; another few weeks wouldn't hurt. They both needed it. The time would come.

He was still haunted by that heartbreaking plea; but he truly didn't understand his brother's rabid need to be away from the hospital. It was quiet, it was clean. No rats, no roaches, no filth. Other than talking to String, he didn't have to do anything but lie in a blessedly soft, comfortable bed. People asked him questions, instead of yelling orders. He wasn't hungry or thirsty anymore; in fact, food – delicious food – appeared even if he didn't want it, wafted in by charming women who appeared to be there for no other reason than to minister to his every wish. After his re-introduction to freedom via baptism by gunfire, he was quite content to stay cocooned here for the time being, before having to cope with the big wide world.

"Hey, String," he said suddenly. "You never said where you got that gun from that you shot Rivers with at Red Star."

"Hmm? Oh, it was Marella's. When Locke's guys came barging into my room at the clinic she managed to shove it under my blankets. Real sleight of hand. They searched her and Cait, but nobody thought of checking the guy in the bed."

"That was dumb of them."

"Yeah, well, if my aim had been a bit better, it would have saved everybody a lot of grief."

"Nobody but you is thinking that, little brother. I'm amazed you were able to hit anything at all. Besides, it gave me a chance to get better acquainted with your lady."

String grinned drowsily. He was clearly about to succumb to his nightly dose of meds. "Yeah, she's somethin', isn't she?"

"She sure is. What are you going to do with her now?"

"Haven't thought about it." He knew perfectly well that the decision was no longer up to him. He hadn't been able to get his head clear enough yet to make up his mind how he felt about that. At the time he'd made his deal with Archangel, it had all seemed straightforward. Now it wasn't so cut and dried.

After a moment, St. John said casually, "Speaking of ladies, you have any idea what happened to Ellie?"

"Saw her not long ago. Looks good. Married to Mr. Six Eighteen."

"Who?"

"She still loves you, St. John."

"Oh, come on. I can't believe she even remembers my name." A moment's pause. "String?"

String was out like the proverbial light. St. John stayed by the bedside for a few minutes, then got up and headed slowly towards his own room.

He was surprised to find both Dominic and Archangel waiting for him. Dom's right arm was in a sling, the hand well bandaged. Archangel was apparently going through paperwork, which he put away in a briefcase when St. John came in.

"String asleep?" asked Dom.

"Yeah." St. John flopped onto the bed, almost in the same state.

"Are you up to a little conversation?" asked Archangel. "I've got a flight to Manila leaving in three hours, otherwise I'd have left this till tomorrow."

St. John, surprised, hauled himself upright. "You're not sticking around?"

"Oh, I'll most definitely be back. Quite soon," said Archangel rather grimly. "I'd just like to get an idea of how the land lies before I go, if possible."

"How the land – oh." St. John looked more closely at both men. Dominic had a look on his face that clearly said there was something going on that he wasn't happy about. "Would this be about a certain top-secret prototype, by any chance?"

"It would."

Puzzled, he said, "Why are you asking me, and not String? It's his baby."

"Because Hawke – String – won't be doing any flying for quite some time. He may never be up to flying Airwolf again. I'm not saying he won't – " Archangel held up a hand as St. John opened his mouth to protest. " – I'm just saying it's a possibility."

Now St. John was even more puzzled. "Even if he doesn't, what's that got to do with me?"

"You did a pretty competent job flying her the other day."

"Me? Hell, I just about ate the side of a mountain. Ask Dom. I'm no use as a chopper pilot any more."

"That's not quite the way Dom tells it. For someone who hadn't flown in years, wasn't in good shape physically, and had never been in Airwolf except as a passenger – and a pretty much unconscious one, at that – you handled her amazingly well."

"Luck. Anyhow, I still don't see where this is going."

"If I have to wait until your brother has completely recovered, Airwolf is going to be out of commission for quite some time. And I – speaking for the Firm, that is – can't wait that long. Would you be interested in serving as her pilot? Purely on an interim basis."

St. John's jaw dropped. _"Me?"_

Archangel nodded.

St. John stared at Dom. "What about you?"

"Don't look at me." Dominic flung both arms out. "Michael already asked me. I said no. Not on any kind of basis. I like riding in the back just fine, and I like subbing for String from time to time. How could any pilot not love flying the Lady? But my job's not in the front seat. Not anymore."

"Maybe mine isn't either. I've still got some healing of my own to do." Like not seeing jungle every time he closed his eyes. Like not being afraid of the world beyond the walls of the hospital. "And I'm not sure I could fill String's shoes anyway."

Archangel levered himself to his feet with the aid of his cane. "I'll be back in four days. Think it over."

"You need to talk to String about this, Michael," said Dominic. "But if you ask me – which you didn't, but I'm gonna tell you regardless – I think it's time you reclaimed the Lady anyway. Airwolf for St. John, that was always supposed to be the deal. Airwolf – or people hunting for her – have already caused String a lot of grief, and now they've just about killed him. Sure he'll recover – this time. But his luck's gonna run out one day. I don't want this to go on. With either String or St. John."

"Dom, at the risk of sounding hopelessly maudlin, that's the risk every fighter pilot – every person who puts his life on the line in order to help others – runs," said Archangel gently. "You know it. Hawke knows it. That's just the way things are."

"Michael, back in World War II, they said those Allied bomber crews only flew something like eight missions at the most. They went out, time after time, because it was their job to keep pounding the enemy, but hardly any of 'em lasted longer than eight missions before they were shot down. There was a war on, they didn't have any choice." He stared down at the floor. "This was damn near to being String's eighth mission. And now he's _got_ a choice."

"There's still a war on. There's _always_ a war on. It just doesn't take place in certain strictly defined theatres any more."

St. John cleared his throat. "I'll tell you what. I'll talk to String before you get back. If he says he wants to keep flying, maybe Dom and I can just take her back and look after her for awhile. Kind of keep her in trust for him. I know what you're saying, Dom, believe me. And you have no idea how much I appreciate it, for him and me both. But if String's got any say in this – and I'm guessing he does, or else we wouldn't even be having this conversation – it's got to be his decision. Nobody else's." He put a hand on the older man's shoulder. "Okay?"

Dominic spread his hands out in surrender. "Okay. I've said my piece. You know how I feel." St. John had always been a gentler soul than his brother; less edgy, more conventional. A damn fine pilot, one of the best Dom had ever met; he would never have let anyone say otherwise, even without yesterday's convincing demonstration. But for better or worse, St. John had never possessed the sometimes lunatic brilliance that String did. Dom would rather try to fly a helicopter without rotors than admit it in front of St. John, but the elder Hawke brother could only be a second-best pilot for Airwolf. He was glad St. John didn't seem interested in the job.

Then again, with more time to think about it, who knew if he might change his mind.

"Four days," said Archangel, his hand on the doorknob.

St. John risked a glance out the window. "Hey, it looks like it's clearing." There were exactly ten well-manicured palm trees out there, he told himself. He'd counted them. No jungle. California. Not Vietnam. "Should be good weather for flying."

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

He was in a dentist's chair under general anaesthetic the next morning. Dominic dropped by to check on Hawke and found him scowling at the ceiling of his room.

"What's the face for?" he asked, dropping heavily into a chair.

"What? Oh, I'm just thinking. Dom, would you mind bringing Le by sometime soon? I should let the kid see he doesn't have Humpty Dumpty for an uncle. If St. John's not ready to see him, we'll work something out later. But I kinda miss the kid."

"Sure, no problem. You know he misses you too."

"Y'know, I've been thinking. Maybe St. John was right about Le. Maybe it would be worse to lie to him. What if his real father shows up some day?"

"Not going to happen," said Dom flatly. "From the sound of it, the only person who knew who he was was Le's mother, and she didn't leave any clue behind. St. John is probably legally Le's father. Le already thinks he's his real father. But who knows, years down the road he might find it out for himself, and that's what's worrying you, isn't it? You don't want him thinking that you've lied to him, that he can't trust your word, even if it was for his own good."

Hawke shrugged.

"So tell him. Even if St. John can't handle it – and it's asking a hell of a lot him to take on that responsibility, for someone he never even knew, when he hardly even knows which way's up yet – Le knows you'll always be there for him."

"Like I have been lately?"

"I seem to recall that him moving in with Jimmy's family was a mutual decision. Best thing for everyone. And as for this – " He made a gesture that encompassed the whole hospital room. " – this could have happened on a stunt. Or just walking across the street."

"But it didn't."

"Then it's a damn good thing you made sure he's already got a home with Jimmy as well as with you."

"Maybe," muttered Hawke.

There was a pause. "Something else on your mind?" Dom prodded eventually.

"We need to decide about Airwolf," said Hawke flatly.

"String, for pity's sake, you're in hospital. The only thing you need on your to-do list right now is thinking about getting better!"

"Michael can't wait. Why should he? A deal's a deal, right? I know you two must have been talking about it. Has he offered her to St. John?"

"Did St. John say he wanted her?" asked Dominic warily.

"Hell, no. He hasn't said what he wants. Probably doesn't even know himself, yet. But he's got a better chance than I do of ever flying her again."

"String, don't say stuff like that."

"Look at me, Dom. You think I'm ever gonna be able to take on another Airwolf mission?"

"I think that if I say yes, you'll tell me I'm full of it, and if I say no, you'll knock yourself out trying to get better so you can prove I'm wrong."

Hawke held his gaze with a glare, then finally broke down and gave a brief smile.

"Thing is, Dom, I want to be around for St. John. He's gonna need a lot of help settling back in. And we've still got years of catching up to do. Can't do that in a few weeks. And I'll give up the Lady in a minute if I have to, 'cause St. John is more important. But…" He trailed off.

"But you sure would miss her," finished Dom.

Hawke nodded.

"So what you're saying is, you want to have your cake and eat it too."

"Yeah, I guess. And that's not fair to anyone."

"But Airwolf's one hell of a cake."

Hawke managed a chuckle at the analogy. "Yeah. She sure is."

"String, I've said this so many times I feel like a broken record, so will you just listen to me for a change so I can stop saying it? Nothing has to get decided right now. Just you worry about getting better. Think about you and St. John up at the lake fishing. You don't have to be afraid to think about it happening, anymore." And it was about time, he knew, that he took his own advice and stopped fretting over who Airwolf's next pilot was going to be. If Stringfellow Hawke was determined not to give up the Lady, then with or without official sanctioning from the Firm, Archangel would probably be quite happy to let him keep flying her - as if he would have any choice in the arrangement. And if Hawke kept flying Airwolf, then there was no way in hell he was going to do it without Dominic Santini in the back seat.

On the other hand, the two Hawkes had always been remarkably good about sharing their toys. Which, in this case, wasn't necessarily a good thing. He might lose both of them.

Listen to your own advice, you old fool. Que sera sera. At least he was wise enough to know, no matter how little the brothers themselves might foresee it, that potential sources of tension, if not downright conflict, wouldn't be lacking in the future. Le Van for one. Airwolf for another. And who knew what might arise simply out of that gulf of sixteen years of separation and inevitable change. The important thing now was that both of them have as much time as possible to heal – and hope that Michael would understand that, and give them that time before butting in demanding another Airwolf mission.

Yeah. Knowing Archangel, he'd probably give them all of two weeks and consider that generous.

"String, I gotta go. Got a charter up the coast this afternoon. Cait'll be in to see you later."

"Sure." Hawke looked out the window. The rain was long gone. Only a few cirrus clouds were spun out across the sunlit sky like threads of candy floss. Ceiling and visibility unlimited. In an unconscious echo of his brother, he said, "Good weather for flying."

_**The End**_


End file.
